## Facts

- Joe Elton Nixon was tried in Florida for first-degree murder and related offenses and was sentenced to death.
- The prosecution’s proof of guilt was strong, including Nixon’s detailed confession and corroborating physical and circumstantial evidence.
- Appointed counsel concluded that disputing guilt would likely fail and harm credibility with the jury.
- Counsel adopted a strategy of conceding guilt during the guilt phase to concentrate on avoiding a death sentence at the penalty phase.
- Counsel repeatedly explained the strategy to Nixon; Nixon did not expressly approve or object and provided little direction.
- At trial, counsel conceded Nixon’s guilt in opening and closing statements while continuing adversarial testing of the State’s case through objections, cross-examination, and challenges to some instructions.
- Nixon was convicted and sentenced to death.
- On postconviction review, the Florida Supreme Court treated counsel’s concession as the equivalent of a guilty plea and held counsel per se ineffective for lack of express client consent, ordering a new trial.
- Florida sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether defense counsel is per se ineffective for conceding a capital defendant’s guilt at trial after informing the defendant but without obtaining the defendant’s express consent.
2. Whether such a concession is the functional equivalent of a guilty plea requiring a presumption of prejudice, or instead must be evaluated under Strickland’s deficient-performance and prejudice framework.

## Decision

- The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court.
- Counsel’s failure to obtain express consent to a guilt-concession strategy did not automatically render counsel ineffective.
- Counsel’s concession strategy was not treated as a guilty plea because the defense maintained a not-guilty plea and subjected the prosecution’s case to adversarial testing.
- The proper standard is Strickland v. Washington; no automatic presumption of prejudice applies based solely on the absence of express consent when the defendant was informed and remained unresponsive.
- The case was remanded for application of Strickland to counsel’s performance.

## Legal Principles

- A guilt-phase concession in a capital trial, made as a trial tactic after consultation efforts, is not the functional equivalent of a guilty plea when the defendant’s trial rights are not waived and the proceeding remains adversarial.
- Ineffective-assistance claims based on counsel’s strategic concessions are assessed under Strickland: (1) objectively unreasonable performance and (2) a reasonable probability of a different result absent the errors.
- A presumption of prejudice is not warranted merely because a defendant did not expressly consent to a tenable strategy that counsel adequately explained, where the defendant did not clearly object and counsel remained an active advocate.

## Conclusion

The Court held that counsel’s informed strategic decision to concede guilt in a capital trial, without the defendant’s express consent but absent an express objection, is not per se ineffective assistance; courts must evaluate the claim under Strickland and may not presume prejudice solely from the lack of explicit approval.


Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175 (2004)