Marc Shelton Fowler v. United States

This Court has held that to establish a violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of trial counsel in a criminal case involving a lapsed plea offer, the defendant must show that there was a “reasonable probability” that the defendant would have accepted the plea offer if it had been properly explained to him by defense counsel. Missouri v. Frye, 566 U.S. 134, 147 (2012). The question presented, on which the federal circuits and state supreme courts are substantially divided, is: Whether defendants who plead not guilty and initially maintain their innocence are categorically barred from ever showing a “reasonable probability” that they would have subsequently accepted a plea offer if it had been properly explained to them by defense counsel.