Whether a but-for causal relationship between the defendant's guilty plea and his counsel's deficiency is nullified by judicial plea admonitions

QUESTION PRESENTED To establish prejudice from defense counsel’s deficiency at the plea stage, a defendant who has pleaded guilty must demonstrate a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s deficiency, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial. The courts below upheld a guilty plea that would not have been entered but for defense counsel’s errors, reasoning that the ill effects of counsel’s poor performance were “cured” by routine plea admonitions given by the trial court at the plea hearing. Shared by a great and growing number of appellate courts, this notion of judicial cure appears to equate satisfaction of the due process right to a knowing and voluntary plea with satisfaction of the Sixth Amendment right to adequate aid and advice of counsel throughout the plea process. The question presented is: Whether a but-for causal relationship between the defendant’s guilty plea and his counsel’s deficiency is nullified by judicial plea admonitions addressing the subject but not the fact of the deficiency where the admonitions are understood by the defendant and are not specifically undermined by counsel at the pleaentry proceeding. i