The Sixth Amendment secures a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel. Under Strickland v. Washington (1984), that right is violated when a lawyer’s performance falls below an objective standard of reasonableness, resulting in prejudice to the defendant. Counsel’s representation is prejudicial when there is a reasonable probability that, but for the lawyer’s deficiencies, the proceeding would have ended differently. Some defendants accept a plea bargain and then argue that their counsel was ineffective; in those cases, Hill v. Lockhart (1985) instructs a court to ask whether there is a reasonable probability that the defendant would have gone to trial had his counsel been constitutionally adequate. When the Court hears argument tomorrow in Premo v. Moore (09-658), it will attempt to clarify how Strickland and Hill apply to plea deals that are made after counsel fails to suppress an unconstitutionally obtained confession.

For those who want to go right to the papers here is the SCOTUSBlog page.

Title: NIBCO, Inc. v. Rivera Docket: 10-383 Issue(s): (1) Whether a court of appeals must conduct a comparative juror analysis when reviewing a claim under Batson v. Kentucky, even though the comparative analysis was neither raised before nor considered by the trial court below; and (2) whether a court of appeals that identifies a suspected Batson problem based on a comparative juror analysis never considered by the trial court can vitiate a trial without remanding to allow the trial court to consider the new arguments and evidence in the first instance.

Title: Dunn v. Louisiana Docket: 10-386 Issue(s): Whether a court’s modification of the three-step Batson v. Kentucky analysis, requiring the defense to prove that its strikes were not motivated by race, while simultaneously requiring it to prove that the state’s strikes were motivated by race, violates the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.