ROBERT LEROY MCCOY v. LOUISIANA
Supreme Court of the US, Ginsburg, May 14, 2018,
6th Amendment – An attorney can not admit the defendant’s guilt in front of a jury if his client has unambiguously told him not to.

(Dissent – Alito with Thomas and Gorsuch- The lawyer only admitted the actus reus, not the mens rea, so he didn’t contravene his client’s wishes)

Facts:
In 2008, Robert McCoy was arrested for the murder of his estranged wife’s parents and son in Louisiana.
Prior to trial, McCoy insisted that he was out of state at the time of the killings and that corrupt police killed the victims when a drug deal went wrong.
Larry English, McCoy’s lawyer, reviewed the evidence in the case and found that there was overwhelming evidence of McCoy’s guilt. The only way to keep McCoy from the death penalty, in the lawyer’s opinion, was admitting guilt.
McCoy was “furious” when his lawyer told him this and directed the lawyer “not to” concede guilt.
McCoy tried to fire his lawyer days before trial, but the trial court did not let him.
At trial, despite McCoy’s demand not to, McCoy’s lawyer told the jury that there was “no way reasonably possible” that they could hear the prosecution’s evidence and reach “any other conclusion than Robert McCoy was the cause of these individuals’ death.”
The jury agreed and returned three death verdicts.
McCoy sought a new trial, arguing that it was a violation of his 6th Amendment right for his attorney to admit guilt when he didn’t want him to.
The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed McCoy’s conviction and McCoy sought review by the Supreme Court.

Held: The Supreme Court held that “a defendant has the right to insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel’s experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the defendant the best chance to avoid the death penalty.”

6th Amendment – In a criminal case, the 6th Amendment guarantees a defendant the right “to have the assistance of counsel for his defense”

6th Amendment – A defendant’s right to defend himself “is personal” and a defendant’s choice in exercising that right must be honored

6th Amendment – The right to “the assistance of counsel” means that the lawyer handles “trial management,” but the defendant still has the last word with regard to decision such as: whether to plead guilty, waive the right to a jury trial, testify on his own behalf, or forgo an appeal

6th Amendment – A defendant also has the right to decide whether the objective of the defense is to claim innocence

From the Case: With individual liberty—and, in capital cases, life—at stake, it is the defendant’s prerogative, not counsel’s, to decide on the objective of his defense: to admit guilt in the hope of gaining mercy at the sentencing stage, or to maintain his innocence, leaving it to the State to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt

From the Case: “Larry English was placed in a difficult position; he had an unruly client and faced a strong government case. He reasonably thought the objective of his representation should be avoidance of the death penalty. But McCoy insistently maintained: ‘I did not murder my family.’ Once he communicated that to court and counsel, strenuously objecting to English’s proposed strategy, a concession of guilt should have been off the table.”

6th Amendment – “Violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment-secured autonomy ranks as error of the kind our decisions have called “structural”; when present, such an error is not subject to harmless-error review.”