In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
While the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of assistance of counsel, that right does not require the defendant to surrender control entirely to his representative.1 Defense counsel’s central province is in trial management, providing assistance in deciding what arguments to make, what evidentiary objections to raise, and what evidence should be submitted.2 At the same time, the accused has the “ultimate authority to make certain fundamental decisions regarding the case,” including “whether to plead guilty, waive a jury, testify in his or her own behalf, or take an appeal.” 3 Such decisions are for the criminal defendant to make notwithstanding the defendant’s own inexperience or lack of professional qualifications.4 Allowing counsel to usurp such decisions from the accused violates the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel, amounting to a structural error that obviates any need to inquire into whether the criminal defendant was prejudiced in any way.5
In this vein, the Court held in McCoy v. Louisiana that a criminal defendant’s choice to maintain his innocence at the guilt phase of a capital trial was not a strategic choice for counsel to make, notwithstanding counsel’s view that confessing guilt offered the best chance to avoid the death penalty.6 Instead, the Court concluded that such a decision amounts to a fundamental choice about the client’s objectives for the criminal proceeding.7 More specifically, while acknowledging that counsel “may reasonably assess a concession of guilt as best suited to avoiding the death penalty,” the Court noted that a criminal defendant may not share the objective of avoiding such a punishment and instead may wish, above all else, to avoid admitting guilt or living the rest of his life in prison.8 Because the Sixth Amendment requires the assistance of counsel, the McCoy Court concluded that a lawyer cannot concede his client’s guilt and must instead assist in achieving his client’s express objective to maintain his innocence of the charged criminal acts.9
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Footnotes
- 1
- See Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819–20 (1975) (noting that counsel, by providing “assistance,” no matter how expert, is “still an assistant” ).
- 2
- See Gonzalez v. United States, 553 U.S. 242, 248 (2008).
- 3
- See Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 751 (1983).
- 4
- See McCoy v. Louisiana, No. 16–8255, slip op. at 6 (U.S. May 14, 2018).
- 5
- See id. at 11 ( “Because a client’s autonomy, not counsel’s competence, is in issue, we do not apply our ineffective-assistance-of-counsel jurisprudence.” ).
- 6
- Id. at 1–2, 6–7.
- 7
- Id.
- 8
- Id. at 7.
- 9
- Id. at 5–8.