McCoy v. Louisiana

Editor's Note :

McCoy v. Louisiana

Interim Stat Pack for October Term 2018 – Adam Feldman

Justices release financial disclosures – Amy Howe

Challengers ask justices to put off census decision – Amy Howe

SCOTUSblog Coverage

SCOTUSblog Coverage

June 2019

Featured Posts

Sponsored by Casetext

SCOTUStalk see all

Email Digest Sign-Up

Merits Case Pages and Archives

Major Cases

Recent Decisions

Current Relists

Recent Special Features

Live Blog Archives

Merits Docket OT18 (June 10, 2019)

Merits Cases by Sitting

Majority Opinions by Author

Voting Breakdown Argued Cases

Majority Lineup 5-4 Decisions

June 2019

Download our App in the Apple Store

Videos see all

Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award

Conference of June 13, 2019

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
16-8255	La.	Jan 17, 2018 Tr.Aud.	May 14, 2018	6-3	Ginsburg	OT 2017

Holding: The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to choose the objective of his defense and to insist that his 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.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 6-3, in an opinion by Justice Ginsburg on May 14, 2018. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined.

The Annual: OT2017 in Review (First Mondays)
OT2017 #25: "The Way The Chief Loves Mootness" (First Mondays)
Opinion analysis: Court rules for death-row inmate whose lawyer conceded guilt (Updated) (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: Concern for death-row inmate's rights likely to trump line-drawing worries (Amy Howe)
OT2017 #11: "Numbing Effect" (First Mondays)
Argument preview: When a defendant in a capital case says “not guilty,” can his attorney say “guilty”? (Amy Howe)
Justices release January calendar (Amy Howe)
Justices issue orders from "long conference" (UPDATED) (Amy Howe)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Mar 06 2017	Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due April 10, 2017)
Mar 24 2017	Brief of respondent Louisiana in opposition filed.
Apr 10 2017	Brief amicus curiae of The Ethics Bureau at Yale filed.
Apr 10 2017	Brief amici curiae of The Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, et al. filed.
Apr 11 2017	Reply of petitioner Robert Leroy McCoy filed. (Distributed)
Apr 13 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 28, 2017.
Apr 24 2017	Record Requested.
Jun 12 2017	Record received from the Supreme Court of Louisiana (6 boxes).
Jun 15 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 25, 2017.
Sep 28 2017	Motion to proceed in forma pauperis and petition for a writ of certiorari GRANTED limited to Question 1 presented by the petition.
Nov 13 2017	Brief of petitioner Robert L.McCoy filed (to be corrected and reprinted).
Nov 13 2017	Joint appendix filed (2 volumes). (Statement of costs filed)
Nov 13 2017	Brief of petitioner Robert L. McCoy filed (Corrected brief received 1/10/18). (Distributed)
Nov 17 2017	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Nov 17 2017	Brief amicus curiae of Cato Institute filed.
Nov 20 2017	Brief amicus curiae of The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed.
Nov 20 2017	Brief amici curiae of Ten Law School Professors and the Ethics Bureau at Yale filed. (Distributed)
Nov 20 2017	Brief amicus curiae of The Criminal Bar Association of England & Wales filed. (Distributed)
Nov 20 2017	Brief amicus curiae of American Bar Association filed. (Distributed)
Nov 22 2017	CIRCULATED.
Dec 13 2017	Brief of respondent Louisiana filed. (Distributed)
Dec 18 2017	Record requested from the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Dec 20 2017	Brief amici curiae of States of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming filed. (Distributed)
Jan 05 2018	Reply of petitioner Robert L.McCoy filed. (Distributed)
Jan 17 2018	Argued. For petitioner: Seth P. Waxman, Washington, D. C. For respondent: Elizabeth Murrill, Solicitor General of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, La.
May 14 2018	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas and Gorsuch, JJ., joined.
Jun 15 2018	JUDGMENT ISSUED.
Jun 15 2018	MANDATE ISSUED.
Jun 20 2018	Record returned to the Supreme Court of Louisiana (6 boxes).

Featured Posts

Interim Stat Pack for October Term 2018 – Adam Feldman

Justices release financial disclosures – Amy Howe

Challengers ask justices to put off census decision – Amy Howe
Sponsored by Casetext
SCOTUStalk see all
Email Digest Sign-Up
Receive a daily email digest from Feedburner by entering your email.
Merits Case Pages and Archives

Archives

or

This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court will release orders from the June 13 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's "Relist Watch" compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
There is a possibility of opinions on Monday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their June 20 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Quarles v. United States Michigan’s third-degree home-invasion statute substantially corresponds to or is narrower than generic burglary for purposes of qualifying for enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act.
- Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, when federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law on the Outer Continental Shelf.
- Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service The federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.
- Azar v. Allina Health Services Because the Department of Health and Human Services neglected its statutory notice-and-comment obligations when it revealed a new policy that dramatically – and retroactively – reduced Medicare payments to hospitals serving low-income patients, its policy must be vacated.
- Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis The charge-filing precondition to suit set out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not a jurisdictional requirement.
- Mont v. United States Pretrial detention later credited as time served for a new conviction tolls a supervised-release term under 18 U.S.C. §3624(e), even if the court must make the tolling calculation after learning whether the time will be credited.
- Taggart v. Lorenzen A creditor may be held in civil contempt for violating a bankruptcy court’s discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor’s conduct.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Jordan v. City of Darien, Georgia Whether the existence of probable cause defeats a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim as a matter of law.
- Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (1) Whether Oregon violated the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment by compelling the Kleins to design and create a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding ritual in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs; (2) whether the Supreme Court should overrule Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; and (3) whether the Supreme Court should reaffirm Smith’s hybrid-rights doctrine, applying strict scrutiny to free exercise claims that implicate other fundamental rights, and resolve the circuit split over the doctrine’s precedential status.
- McGee v. McFadden (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred when it found no constitutional error when the state failed to disclose Brady evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch, until the post-trial hearing for a motion for a new trial; (2) whether the state and federal courts’ decisions were contrary to Giglio v. United States, United States v. Bagley, Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois when the state failed to disclose material impeachment evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch who testified that petitioner confessed to him; and (3) whether the state and federal courts erred in finding that trial counsel rendered effective assistance of counsel when he failed to interview Michael Jones and call him as a witness.
More Petitions »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 69

Cases decided 42

Summary reversals 5

Merits cases granted to date 73

see all »
Live Blog Archives
See all
Twitter Feed

Tweets by @SCOTUSblog

Merits Docket OT18 (June 10, 2019)
Merits Cases by Sitting
Majority Opinions by Author
Voting Breakdown Argued Cases
Majority Lineup 5-4 Decisions

Full Calendar Submit Event

Orders/Opinions
Arguments
Conferences

Events
Holidays
Multiple

Download our App in the Apple Store
Videos see all

Justice Thomas at the Supreme Court Historical Society

On June 3, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with David Rubenstein for the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual lecture at the Supreme Court.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	69
Cases decided	42
Summary reversals	5
Merits cases granted to date	73

3
Orders
Opinions

6
Conference

10
Orders
Opinions

13
Conference

17
Orders
Opinions

20
Conference