Whether a federal habeas court may summarily dismiss a petition alleging a substantial but defaulted claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel under Martinez v. Ryan without holding an evidentiary hearing

QUESTION PRESENTED Gary Terry was sentenced to death in South Carolina by a jury that heard almost nothing about pervasive abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. In state post-conviction proceedings, his trial counsel averred that they presented all evidence of abuse of which they were aware, despite the fact that their own file included notes documenting how Terry’s father regularly beat him “hard enough for the wf[elt]s to bleed” and how his father whipped all of the children whenever he was angry. Terry’s state post-conviction review counsel neither inquired into nor challenged the adequacy of trial counsel’s mitigation presentation. When Terry’s case went into federal habeas and his new counsel proffered evidence of the child abuse for the first time, the district court—at the summary judgment stage—drew a series of unsupported inferences in favor of the State, granted the State’s motion for summary judgment, and denied Terry’s request for an evidentiary hearing. The Fourth Circuit affirmed. Under these circumstances, where post-conviction counsel’s ineffectiveness deprives a state-court prisoner the opportunity to present evidence of trial counsel’s ineffectiveness, this Court has recognized an equitable exception to the standard procedural default rules. Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012). But because Terry never had an opportunity for an evidentiary hearing and because his case was dismissed at the summary judgment stage, no court has ever considered the merits of his ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim with a materially accurate factual record. The question presented is: In determining whether a federal habeas petitioner’s pleadings and supporting documents have alleged a substantial but defaulted claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel that satisfies Martinez v. Ryan’s “cause” standard, may a district court summarily dismiss the petition by drawing factual inferences against the petitioner without holding an evidentiary hearing?