text: The lawyer told the Louisiana jury that the state would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Robert McCoy had committed a gruesome triple homicide in 2008, murdering the son, mother and stepfather of his estranged wife. 
   
   "There is no way reasonably possible that you can listen to the evidence in this case and not come to any other conclusion than Robert McCoy was the cause of these individuals' deaths," said lawyer Larry English. 
   
   But here's the twist: English was not the prosecutor in the case. He was McCoy's defense attorney. And McCoy vehemently proclaimed his innocence. 
   
   [Supreme Court embarks on what could be ‘momentous’ term] 
   
   The Supreme Court last week said that it would review McCoy's conviction — he was subsequently sentenced to death — to answer what sounds more like a typo than a contested question of law: 
   
   Does it violate the Constitution for a defense counsel to concede a client's guilt over the accused's express objection? 
   
   "It happens more often than you think it would," said Lawrence J. Fox, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School who filed a brief on McCoy's behalf for the Ethics Bureau at Yale. 
   
   It occurs mostly in capital cases, Fox said, when lawyers think that it would be impossible to convince a jury that a client is not guilty. The theory is that by creating some trust with jurors, it might be possible to get a conviction on a lesser murder charge that does not carry a death sentence. 
   
   "They think the most important thing is to save the client's life," Fox said. 
   
   But that misunderstands the lawyer's role, he said. 
   
   "The decision over whether to concede guilt at trial is ultimately the defendant's to make," Fox's brief to the court states. "It goes to the very heart of the right to put on a defense — a right that personally belongs to the accused." 
   
   McCoy's attorneys at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center said that English's actions — allowed by the trial judge and unanimously upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court — did not fulfill the Sixth Amendment's promise that the accused have "assistance of counsel for his defense." 
   
   "It is inconceivable that the Framers intended that the assistance of counsel should come at the price of defense counsel being authorized to tell the jury that the accused is guilty, even over the accused's protestations of his own innocence," the center's Richard Bourke wrote in McCoy's petition to the Supreme Court. 
   
   There's little doubt that the state had a pretty compelling case against McCoy, who was looking for his wife, who had gone into protective seclusion after McCoy had allegedly threatened to kill her and himself. 
   
   In a 911 call, McCoy's mother-in-law, Christine Colston Young, could be heard screaming: "She ain't here, Robert. I don't know where she is. The detectives have her." A gunshot was then heard on the 911 tape, and the call was disconnected. 
   
   A car later found to be McCoy's was seen leaving the area, and police officers discovered in the abandoned vehicle the phone that Young had used. Eventually, McCoy was arrested in Idaho, after hitchhiking rides from truckers. The gun used in the killings was found with him. In custody, McCoy tried to hang himself. 
   
   But he maintained his innocence, alleging a conspiracy among local police officers to commit the murders and frame him. His first public defender attorney was let go because of differences between the two, and then his parents paid English $5,000 to represent their son. 
   
   But English, who was not certified in capital cases, was of the mind that there was no way to convince a jury that McCoy was telling the truth. 
   
   English declined to be interviewed. But when lawyers were attempting to get a new trial for McCoy, he testified, "I'm a seasoned criminal trial lawyer, had been doing this for a number of years, and I had never had a case where the evidence was so overwhelming against a client." 
   
   After English informed McCoy that he was going to tell the jury that McCoy was guilty, and McCoy objected, they told Judge Jeff Cox of their disagreement. But Cox said he was not going to again delay the trial and would not allow McCoy to replace English or represent himself. 
   
   When English made his opening statement to the jury, McCoy again objected. 
   
   "Judge Cox, Mr. English is simply selling me out, Judge Cox," McCoy said from the defense table. 
   
   English's strategy did not work, in part because Louisiana does not allow the kind of limited-mental-capacity defense that the lawyer pursued. McCoy was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. 
   
   The Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously upheld English's strategy and the trial judge's decisions. 
   
   "Admitting guilt in an attempt to avoid the imposition of the death penalty appears to constitute reasonable trial strategy," the court concluded. 
   
   But McCoy's petition said the Louisiana decision is an outlier. State supreme courts across the country have considered the issue, McCoy's petition says, and all came out the opposite way. 
   
   The Louisiana justices based their decision on a 2004 Supreme Court case, Florida v. Nixon, that said it was not necessarily ineffective counsel for a lawyer to concede guilt when a client is informed of the strategy and "neither consents or objects." 
   
   But McCoy's petition says the case is quite different here: McCoy objected at every step of the process. And it said the Louisiana court misinterpreted another Supreme Court precedent, one requiring defense attorneys to challenge the state's evidence against a client. English instead agreed with it, the petition said. 
   
   "This is not the counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment but a far more sinister character unimagined in our constitution," the petition states. 
   
   McCoy v. Louisiana is to be heard at the Supreme Court sometime in 2018. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
   
   / Updated By Jon Schuppe 
   
   On trial for his life, Robert McCoy claimed he was the innocent victim of a police conspiracy ─ despite a mountain of evidence that he had killed three members of his estranged wife's family in northwestern Louisiana. 
   
   But his lawyer, Larry English, saw the case as unwinnable, and decided to focus on sparing McCoy from execution. English outlined his strategy: admit guilt from the start, then ask the jury for mercy. 
   
   McCoy refused. English insisted. They argued, behind closed doors, before the judge and in front of the jury. McCoy tried to fire English, but the judge said it was too late. In August 2011, the jury convicted McCoy of first-degree murder, and sentenced him to die. 
   
   Robert McCoy, who is on death row for a triple murder. Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office 
   
   More than six years later, McCoy sits on Louisiana's death row and is still fighting. He wants a new trial, arguing that his constitutional rights as a criminal defendant ─ specifically, the ability to mount his own defense ─ were violated. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the case, which explores the boundaries of two tenets of the American justice system: the adversarial relationship between the government and the accused, and a defendant's ability to make decisions about his fate. 
   
   The plan English embraced is not uncommon in today's courtrooms. Defense lawyers often choose to concede that their client is guilty to avoid a worse outcome. It happens often in death penalty cases, when the defendant appears likely to be convicted, and the same jury charged with deciding guilt also chooses punishment. In those cases, the lawyer may decide that it would appear insincere to argue in the first phase that the defendant didn't commit the crime, then turn around and ask for leniency. 
   
   Related: How America’s justice system runs on the exchange of money for freedom 
   
   "The stakes get really high when what you're facing is a likely guilty verdict with a likely death penalty, especially when you say 'I didn't do it,'" said Ernie Lewis, executive director of the National Association for Public Defense. 
   
   Typically the client goes along with the plan. 
   
   McCoy, accused of fatally shooting his estranged wife's mother, stepfather and teen-age son in May 2008, wanted nothing to do with it. 
   
   "Your Honor, this is unconstitutional for you to keep an attorney on my case when this attorney is completely selling me out." 
   
   English, who had been hired by McCoy's parents and was not certified to try capital cases, told the Bossier Parish jury in his opening statement that "Mr. McCoy committed these crimes." English called his client "crazy" and argued for a lighter verdict of second-degree murder. 
   
   McCoy interrupted. 
   
   "Your Honor, this is unconstitutional for you to keep an attorney on my case when this attorney is completely selling me out," he told the judge. 
   
   The trial continued. McCoy defied English and took the stand in his own defense, testifying that he was out of state at the time of the murders and blaming a police-led drug ring for committing them. Then English gave his closing arguments, saying that McCoy was guilty, but only of second-degree murder, because of mental deficiencies. 
   
   Larry English, who was Robert McCoy's lawyer. Dash Media PR 
   
   Later, after McCoy was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die, English reflected on his decisions in an affidavit. He said he'd become "convinced that the evidence against Robert McCoy was overwhelming" and that his client was paranoid and delusional. 
   
   "I felt that as long as I was his attorney of record it was my ethical duty to do what I thought was best to save his life even though what he wanted me to do was to get him acquitted in the guilt phase," English said. 
   
   McCoy set about appealing his conviction, claiming he was denied his constitutional rights to the assistance of counsel and due process. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled against him. 
   
   "Given the circumstances of this crime and the overwhelming evidence incriminating the defendant, admitting guilt in an attempt to avoid the imposition of the death penalty appears to constitute reasonable trial strategy," the Louisiana justices ruled. 
   
   Related: Louisiana is shedding its reputation as U.S.’s biggest jailer 
   
   The Louisiana court relied in part on a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a Florida case that permitted a concession of guilt when a defendant was unresponsive to his lawyer's questions. But it did not address the situation in which a defendant explicitly disagrees ─ a test of the limits of a defendant's autonomy as outlined in the Constitution. 
   
   "A lawyer uses whatever strategies are available to them that are ethical and what the law permits him to do." 
   
   "It is inconceivable that the framers intended that the assistance of counsel should come at the price of defense counsel being authorized to tell the jury that the accused is guilty, even over the accused’s protestations of his own innocence," Richard Bourke, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, wrote in McCoy's petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
   
   The high court agreed in October to hear the case. 
   
   McCoy’s new lawyers say the concept of attorneys going against their client’s wishes by admitting guilt is rare, but less so in Louisiana, where courts have accepted it. English said after the trial that he'd relied on a 2002 state court ruling on a similar case, from adjacent Caddo Parish, that supported the practice. 
   
   “This is really a Louisiana rule that grew out of Caddo Parish,” Bourke said. 
   
   The Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (LACDL) complained in a brief supporting McCoy that the local courts had turned the right to assistance of counsel "into the state's cudgel." The LACDL said that "an uncomfortable number of death sentences in Louisiana are the result of defendants representing themselves or defendants expressly objecting to their lawyers' concessions of guilt." 
   
   Related: Cash Bail, a Centerpiece of the Justice System, Is Facing Its Undoing 
   
   McCoy's ex-wife, Yolanda Colston, did not respond to requests for comment. 
   
   English, who left his full-time law practice to work in New York real estate development, declined in a recent interview to talk about specifics of the case. But he said he generally did not regret the way he represented clients, saying he did his best to advocate their best interests. 
   
   "A lawyer uses whatever strategies are available to them that are ethical and what the law permits him to do," English said. 
   
   Eleven states filed a joint brief in support of Louisiana, saying the case "presents a textbook example of a reasonable strategic concession." 
   
   But many lawyers say English served McCoy poorly. Among the groups who have filed briefs in support of McCoy are the the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Bar Association, several prominent law professors and Yale Law School's Ethics Bureau. 
   
   "Mr. English acted in clear violation of his ethical obligations as a lawyer as well as Mr. McCoy's constitutional rights," the professors and Ethics Bureau said in a joint brief. 
   
   Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, agreed. 
   
   "If the strategy doesn't work, it's the client who is held responsible," Joy told NBC News. "The lawyer goes home. The client goes to prison or death row."
target: – The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in a death row case, but this one has an unusual element. The case involves Robert McCoy, who is currently on Louisiana's death row after being convicted of a triple homicide back in 2011. McCoy has always maintained his innocence, but his attorney, Robert English, defied McCoy's wishes during the trial and told the jury that McCoy was guilty—figuring it was the only hope of avoiding a death sentence, explains NBC News. The gambit didn't work, however. McCoy was convicted and sentenced to death, and now McCoy is arguing that his constitutional right to mount a defense was violated. More background and developments: The crime: McCoy is accused of killing his estranged wife's teenage son, mother, and stepfather, while searching for his wife, and the Washington Post reports that prosecutors had compelling evidence. On a 911 call, McCoy's mother-in-law could be heard saying, "She ain’t here, Robert. I don’t know where she is," before a gunshot rings out and the call is disconnected. Witnesses saw McCoy's car leaving the area, and cops later found the phone his mother-in-law used to call 911 in the vehicle.