Whether McCoy v. Louisiana established a new constitutional rule or merely applied existing Sixth Amendment principles for determining when counsel's admission of guilt violates a defendant's right to counsel

No question identified. : To the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Fifth Circuit: The State of Mississippi has scheduled the execution of Petitioner Charles Ray Crawford for October 15, 2025. On October 1, 2025, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of certiorari presenting the question whether McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U.S. 414 (2018), announced a new tule under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 301 (1989), or instead merely applied existing Sixth Amendment principles in holding that the accused has an absolute Sixth Amendment “right to insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt” at trial. McCoy, 584 U.S. at 417. For the reasons explained at length in the petition, there is at minimum a reasonable prospect that this Court will grant certiorari on that question and reverse the Mississippi Supreme Court’s holding that McCoy announced a new rule; and absent a stay, petitioner will suffer the irreparable harm of being executed on October 15. At petitioner’s capital trial, petitioner’s counsel repeatedly conceded petitioner’s guilt before the jury, going so far as to argue that petitioner was “legally responsible” and “still dangerous.” Petitioner objected both to counsel and to the trial court, to no avail. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death. After petitioner’s conviction became final, this Court held in McCoy that the Sixth Amendment prohibits counsel from conceding guilt over the accused’s objection. Based on McCoy, petitioner filed a successor postconviction petition in the Mississippi Supreme Court, invoking the State’s rules permitting such petitions when there has been an intervening change in the law. Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-27(9). The Mississippi Supreme Court denied relief in a bare-bones order that dismissed the petition as procedurally barred on the ground that McCoy does not apply retroactively—a conclusion that rests on the unstated conclusion that McCoy announced a new rule. But McCoy did no such thing—instead, it straightforwardly applied longstanding Sixth Amendment principles that, at the time petitioner was convicted, already guaranteed him the right to be “master of his own defense.” Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 382 n.10 (1979). McCoy’s clarification of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights thus applies with full force on collateral review. Certiorari is manifestly warranted to review the Mississippi Supreme Court’s refusal on federal law retroactivity grounds to honor its “duty to grant the relief that federal law requires.” Yates v. Aiken, 484 U.S. 211, 217-218 (1988). Petitioner respectfully requests a stay of execution pending the Court’s disposition of this case. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND As explained more thoroughly in petitioner’s pending petition, this case arises from a Mississippi capital conviction and sentence that became final before this Court decided McCoy. Pet. 6-11. Long before both McCoy and petitioner’s 1994 trial, however, this Court had held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused, rather than his counsel, “the ultimate authority to make certain fundamental decisions” about his defense. Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 751 (1983). That consistent line of this Court’s decisions reflected that the Sixth Amendment “contemplat[es] a norm in which the accused, and not a lawyer, is master of his own defense.” Gannett, 443 U.S. at 382 n.10; see, e.g., Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 820 (1975) (the Sixth Amendment “speaks of the ‘assistance’ of counsel, and an assistant, however expert, is still an assistant”). In McCoy, this Court clarified that, at trial, “a defendant has the right to insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel’s experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the defendant the best chance to avoid the death penalty.” 584 U.S. at 417. “Guaranteeing a defendant the right ‘to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence,’ the Sixth Amendment so demands.