On September 28, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in McCoy v. Louisiana to consider whether the Sixth Amendment permits defense counsel to concede guilt over the express and emphatic objection of the defendant.
In affirming McCoy’s murder convictions, the Louisiana Supreme Court found that defense counsel’s concession of guilt was justified because the defendant’s proposed alibi defense “could not be substantiated, had no reasonable chance of success [and] exposed those who attempted such a defense to the charge of perjury.”
The amicus brief filed by the Ethics Bureau at Yale in support of the petition for a writ of certiorari refutes this “astonishing interpretation” of the Rules of Professional Conduct by pointing out that neither Rule 1.2 nor Rule 3.3 invests a lawyer with authority to unilaterally concede a client’s guilt because the lawyer doubts his client’s claim of innocence. As argued by amicus, the Rules provide guidance for counsel facing a request to present false evidence, but the alternative approaches to the problem do not include conceding guilt.
Justice Blackmun’s concurrence in Nix v. Whiteside reminds us that the only federal issue in cases like McCoy is whether the defendant was deprived of effective assistance of counsel. But Louisiana’s reliance on counsel’s “ethical dilemma” to justify his unilateral concession of guilt provides the Court with an opportunity to discuss Louisiana’s interpretation of its ABA based Rules of Professional Conduct.