Davis v. United States

Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 1
JACKSON, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
QUARTAVIOUS DAVIS v. UNITED STATES
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED
STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 22–5364. Decided February 21, 2023
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins,
dissenting from the denial of certiorari.
Our criminal justice system today is “for the most part a
system of pleas, not a system of trials.” Lafler v. Cooper,
566 U. S. 156, 170 (2012). Against this backdrop, this Court
has recognized that the loss of an opportunity for a favora-
ble plea offer due to an attorney’s deficient performance can
violate the Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel. Id.,at 169–170; see also Missouri v. Frye, 566 U. S. 134 (2012).
Petitioner Quartavious Davis alleged, and the Eleventh
Circuit did not dispute, that he satisfied the first prong of
the Strickland ineffective-assistance-of-counsel standard
because his attorney failed to initiate plea negotiations with
the Government. The question presented, then, is how can
a defendant like Davis show “prejudice” as a result of this
failure? See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 687
(1984) (ineffective assistance of counsel requires a showing
of both deficient performance and prejudice).
The Circuits appear to be at odds with respect to this im-
portant question. Under our case law, in order to demon-
strate prejudice when defense counsel’s deficient perfor-
mance causes the defendant to forgo an advantageous plea
deal, the defendant must show there was “a reasonable
probability” that the relevant parties—the prosecution, de-
fendant, and the court—would have accepted the plea.
Frye, 566 U. S., at 147. But some Circuits have held that
2 DAVIS v. UNITED STATES
JACKSON, J., dissenting
this showing can be made without proof that the Govern-
ment had put a plea offer on the table, see Byrd v. Skipper,
940 F. 3d 248, 252, 255–256 (CA6 2019); United States v.
Pender, 514 Fed. Appx. 359, 360–361 (CA4 2013) (per cu-
riam), while others seem to impose a threshold requirement
that a defendant cannot show prejudice if “the government
never extended . . . a formal plea offer” to the defendant,
Ramirez v. United States, 751 F. 3d 604, 608 (CA8 2014);
see also Byrd, 940 F. 3d, at 264 (Griffin, J., dissenting) (col-
lecting cases to support the proposition that ineffective as-
sistance of counsel in this context “require[s] proof of a plea
offer”).
In this case, the Eleventh Circuit joined the debate. The
District Court concluded that Davis’s allegations in his 28
U. S. C. §2255 motion were insufficient, even if true, be-
cause he had not alleged “that a plea offer was made but
not communicated to [him].” The Eleventh Circuit af-
firmed, concluding that Davis was not entitled to an eviden-
tiary hearing to prove his allegations because “Davis did not
allege in his §2255 petition that the government even of-
fered a plea deal,” which, in the Eleventh Circuit’s view,
meant that Davis had insufficiently pleaded prejudice.
The instant case not only implicates a divergence of cir-
cuit opinions, but also is an ideal vehicle to evaluate the
Eleventh Circuit’s bright-line rule that an adequate show-
ing of prejudice requires an actual plea offer. That im-
portant legal question is isolated here; since the Eleventh
Circuit assumed deficient performance, so can we. See
Lafler, 566 U. S., at 163. And because the lower courts de-
nied Davis’s motion without an evidentiary hearing based
solely on the pleading deficiency, the sole question before us
is whether a defendant must allege (and then ultimately
show) that an actual plea offer was made.
Moreover, under the circumstances presented here, it
was exceedingly likely that Davis would have prevailed
with respect to the prejudice prong if the Eleventh Circuit
Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 3
JACKSON, J., dissenting
had not applied that threshold requirement. Davis’s alle-
gations established that a favorable plea agreement was a
strong possibility, even though no offer actually material-
ized, because each of Davis’s five codefendants had lawyers
who negotiated favorable plea agreements with respect to
the same series of armed robberies. And while Davis (who
was 18 or 19 years old at the time the crimes were commit-
ted) received a sentence of approximately 160 years of im-
prisonment after his attorney took him to trial, all of Da-
vis’s codefendants received sentences of less than 40 years
of imprisonment due to plea agreements that enabled the
District Court to impose a sentence below the mandatory
minimum. The District Court’s statements at sentencing
were also noteworthy: The judge specifically asserted that,
while he thought the appropriate sentence for Davis was 40
years, he was bound by the consecutive mandatory mini-
mums.*
The Eleventh Circuit gave short shrift to these alleged
facts, and others, which suggest that Davis was harmed by
his counsel’s failure to initiate plea negotiations because it
applied a bright-line rule that prejudice cannot be shown in
the absence of a plea offer. This petition presents the Court
with a clear opportunity to resolve a Circuit split regarding
whether having an actual plea offer is an indispensable pre-
requisite to making the necessary showing of prejudice. I
would grant certiorari to resolve that issue.
——————
*The mandatory minimums that applied to Davis were subsequently
revisited—and revised—by Congress. See 18 U. S. C. §924(c)(1)(A). Da-
vis asserts that, if sentenced today, he would face a mandatory minimum
of 35 years of imprisonment.