Whether the introduction of Petitioner's statement violated his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under Miranda v. Arizona

QUESTION PRESENTED Upon his arrest, Petitioner asserted both his right to counsel and his right to silence, but those assertions were thwarted by a police officer who first told Petitioner’s wife that the police knew he was not present when the murders were committed and that he would be allowed to go home to her and their baby if he told them what he knew, then created two opportunities for her to use that false assurance to persuade Petitioner to speak. Petitioner’s resulting statement admitted his gang membership and described both his knowledge of the gang’s planned marijuana robbery and his own role in supplying guns for that robbery, a robbery that morphed into an unexpected and fatal confrontation between two gangs while Petitioner was in his own home. Petitioner’s statement was the only significant evidence implicating him in the robbery-gone-bad and without it, he could not have been prosecuted for capital murder. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure 11.071(5)(a)(2) provides for authorization of a subsequent petition when “by a preponderance of the evidence, but for a violation of the United States Constitution no rational juror could have found the applicant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jd. at §5(a)(2). Despite the lack of any evidence beyond Petitioner’s confession that could have sustained his conviction, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, without explanation, determined that Petitioner’s subsequent petition “failed to satisfy the requirements of Article 11.071, § 5(a),”’and dismissed his application “as an abuse of the writ without considering the merits of the claims.” IL Whether under all the circumstances, including an officer’s knowing and deliberate deployment of Petitioner’s wife to elicit statements from Petitioner while he was in custody, the falsity of the information the officer gave her to convey to the petitioner, the strength of the incentive he proffered to induce the Petitioner to speak, and the fact that similar tactics were deliberately employed to obtain confessions Petitioner’s codefendants, introduction of the resulting statement Petitioner’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). I. Whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ determination that the Petitioner’s subsequent petition failed to satisfy the requirements of Article 11.071, § 5(a)(2) was an adequate and independent state ground precluding merits review of his claim where that provision authorizes a subsequent petition when “by a preponderance of the evidence, but for a violation of the United States Constitution no rational juror could have found the applicant guilty beyond a _ reasonable doubt” and the confession whose constitutionality Petitioner is challenging was the only significant evidence linking him to the capital murder with which he was charged. i