Lafler v. Cooper

Attorney: ineffective assistance of counsel: plea offer: where counsel’s ineffective advice led to an offer’s rejection, and where the prejudice alleged is having to stand trial, a defendant must show that but for the ineffective advice, there is a reasonable probability that the plea offer would have been presented to the court, that the court would have accepted its terms, and that the conviction or sentence, or both, under the offer’s terms would have been less severe than under the actual judgment and sentence imposed; first, they claim that the Sixth Amendment’s sole purpose is to protect the right to a fair trial, but the Amendment actually requires effective assistance at critical stages of a criminal proceeding, including pretrial stages. This is consistent with the right to effective assistance on appeal, see, e.g., Halbert v. Michigan, 545 U. S. 605, and the right to counsel during sentencing, see, e.g., Glover v. United States, 531 U. S. 198, 203–204; here, the question is the fairness or reliability not of the trial but of the processes that preceded it, which caused respondent to lose benefits he would have received but for counsel’s ineffective assistance. Furthermore, a reliable trial may not foreclose relief when counsel has failed to assert rights that may have altered the outcome. See Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U. S. 365, 379. Petitioner’s position that a fair trial wipes clean ineffective assistance during plea bargaining also ignores the reality that criminal justice today is for the most part a system of pleas, not a system of trials. See Missouri v. Frye, ante, at ___(U.S. S. Ct., 21.03.12, Lafler v. Cooper, J. Kennedy).

Avocat : violation de son devoir de diligence par une assistance insuffisante du client : offre avant procès d'une transaction pénale : lorsque les conseils ineffectifs de l'avocat conduisent le client à rejeter une transaction avec l'autorité pénale, et lorsque le préjudice invoqué consiste à subir le procès pénal de première instance, le prévenu doit démontrer qu'en l'absence du conseil déficient, il existe une probabilité raisonnable que l'offre de transaction aurait été présentée à la cour, que la cour en aurait accepté les termes, et que la condamnation, la peine, ou les deux, selon les termes de la convention, aurait été moins sévère que selon le jugement. L'assistance effective de l'avocat, dans le cadre du procès pénal, s'étend également à son activité avant procès. La justice criminelle de nos jours est la plupart du temps un système d'accord passé avec le procureur, et non un système de procédure devant le juge pénal.