Updated

This wikilog article is a draft, it was not published yet.

by: Ryan • October 29, 2011 • no comments

Update: Here's the NY Times, describing the plea offers which were rejected, among other things.

Two other big criminal defense cases are being argued at SCOTUS this week. A valuable discussion can be found at this post at SCOTUSblog. From that post, this short summary of the issue:

In both cases, the parties either agree or assume for argument's sake that the performances of Cooper and Frye's counsel were deficient. The central disagreement between the parties - on the one hand, the criminal defendants, and on the other the states and United States (appearing as an amicus in support of the states) - is Strickland's prejudice prong. The states and United States argue that, so long as the defendant has not been deprived a fair and reliable trial, there is no prejudice under Strickland. By contrast, Cooper and Frye argue that because plea bargaining is a critical stage of a criminal proceeding, the relevant inquiry is whether counsel's deficient performance affected the outcome of the plea process - the view uniformly applied by the lower courts.