Whether the state court's decision to foreclose habeas review of a capital defendant's claim under McCoy v. Louisiana contravenes federal law

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In McCoy v. Louisiana, _U.S.__, 138 S. Ct. 1500 (2018) this Court held that the Sixth Amendment protects a defendant’s “[a]utonomy to decide that the objective of the defense is to assert innocence.” Jd. at 1508. Throughout the pre-trial period when represented by counsel, Petitioner, who was facing a death sentence, refused to plead guilty. He insisted to his counsel that he was innocent and that another person committed the crimes. At trial, however, counsel conceded Petitioner’s guilt without notifying him beforehand, and the jury sentenced him to death. In light of this Court’s holding in McCoy, Petitioner presented a subsequent application to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals raising the claim that trial counsel violated his Sixth Amendment right to insist upon his innocence at his capital trial. Although Texas law permits review of the merits review of a claim raised in a subsequent application when the legal basis for that claim was not previously available, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Petitioner’s application. It determined that McCoy had been available because it was a “logical extension” of Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175 (2004), and found that Petitioner failed to make a prima facie case of a McCoy violation. These circumstances present the following questions: 1) Whether the sate court’s decision to foreclose habeas review of a capital defendant’s claim under McCoy v. Louisiana contravenes federal law because it holds that the Sixth Amendment autonomy right recognized in McCoy was a “logical extension” of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel at issue in Florida v. Nixon? 2) Whether the state court’s holding that Petitioner failed to make a prima facie case under McCoy violates core Sixth Amendment principles where there is no dispute that the individual insisted to his counsel that he is innocent but counsel nevertheless conceded his guilt? -ii