Whether, where appointed counsel in a capital case had a flat-fee contract and failed to investigate or challenge a capital murder charge to the client's detriment, counsel had an actual conflict of interest that adversely affected their performance such that Cuyler v. Sullivan's presumption of prejudice applies

QUESTION PRESENTED When Brian Dorsey faced capital-murder charges, he was appointed counsel who were paid a very low flat fee of $12,000 each. Chris Slusher, having recently opened his own solo practice, emailed the man who would be his co-counsel, Scott McBride, and told him to request appointment, stating, Mr. Dorsey is “easy to work with” and “ready to do what his attorneys advise.” What Mr. Dorsey’s counsel advised to was to plead guilty to a crime he could not have committed—despite counsel being aware that psychosis was a legal defense to capital murder under Missouri law. After doing no investigation whatsoever, including refusing to work with the investigator that would have been paid for by the public defender office, counsel pressured Mr. Dorsey to agree to plead guilty the morning before a court hearing. The attorneys obtained nothing for Mr. Dorsey in exchange for his guilty plea. Though they assured Mr. Dorsey this guilty plea would help in his sentencing phase proceeding, counsel undertook next to no mitigation investigation and declined to engage a mitigation specialist. Then, when their own expert testified in the sentencing phase that, due to incapacity based on mental disease or defect, Mr. Dorsey was incapable of the deliberation required for first-degree murder, the judge was forced to strike that testimony because Mr. Dorsey, at his attorneys’ urging, had already pled guilty. Counsel’s decisions, rather than informed by investigation, only make sense in the i context of the conflict under which they were laboring. The flat-fee contract structure pitted their personal financial interests directly against Mr. Dorsey’s fundamental rights to assistance of counsel and a fair trial. In Cuyler v. Sullivan, this Court ruled that a defendant alleging ineffective assistance of counsel based on his attorney’s conflict of interest need show only that an “actual conflict of interest adversely affected his lawyer’s performance.” 446 U.S. 335, 350 (1980). But, as this Court has made clear, Sullivan’s scope remains an open question. Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U.S. 162, 176 (2002). The question presented is: Whether, where appointed counsel in a capital case had a flat-fee contract and failed to investigate or challenge a capital murder charge to the client’s detriment, counsel had an actual conflict of interest that adversely affected their performance such that Cuyler v. Sullivan’s presumption of prejudice applies. ii