## Facts

- Carlos Trevino was convicted of capital murder in Texas and sentenced to death for the rape and fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old girl.
- At the penalty phase, trial counsel did not present certain mitigating evidence that Trevino later claimed should have been investigated and introduced.
- New counsel on direct appeal did not raise an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel (IATC) claim concerning penalty-phase mitigation.
- Different counsel in Trevino’s initial state postconviction (habeas) proceeding also did not raise that IATC claim.
- Trevino first developed and presented the IATC claim in federal habeas proceedings; Texas courts then treated the claim as procedurally defaulted for failure to raise it in the initial state habeas application.
- Federal courts held the default barred merits review, concluding Texas’s procedural rule was an independent and adequate state ground.
- The case reached the Supreme Court to determine whether the equitable rule recognized in Martinez v. Ryan applies to Texas’s procedure for raising IATC claims.

## Issues

1. Whether ineffective assistance (or absence) of counsel in an initial state collateral proceeding can constitute “cause” to excuse procedural default of a substantial IATC claim in a system that formally permits IATC claims on direct appeal but typically requires collateral fact development.
2. Whether Martinez v. Ryan’s exception to Coleman v. Thompson applies to Texas’s procedural framework governing IATC claims.

## Decision

- The Court vacated the Fifth Circuit’s judgment and remanded.
- The Court held that Martinez’s equitable exception applies where state procedures make it highly unlikely, in a typical case, that a defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise an IATC claim on direct appeal, even if direct appeal is not formally foreclosed.
- The Court concluded that Texas’s design and operation generally require habeas proceedings to develop the facts needed for IATC claims, making initial collateral review the practical first opportunity to litigate them.
- The Court reaffirmed that the rule is equitable and does not create a constitutional right to counsel in state collateral review.

## Legal Principles

- Under Coleman v. Thompson, attorney error in state postconviction proceedings ordinarily is not “cause” to excuse procedural default because there is no constitutional right to counsel in collateral proceedings.
- Under Martinez v. Ryan, a procedural default will not bar federal habeas review of a substantial IATC claim when, in the state’s initial-review collateral proceeding, the prisoner had no counsel or counsel was ineffective.
- Martinez extends to state systems that, by their design and operation, make it highly unlikely that IATC claims can be meaningfully raised on direct appeal; in such systems, initial collateral review functions as the first effective forum for IATC litigation.
- To obtain federal merits review under this doctrine, the defaulted IATC claim must be “substantial,” and the failure to raise it must be attributable to the absence or ineffectiveness of counsel in the initial-review collateral proceeding.

## Conclusion

The Court held that, because Texas procedures typically prevent meaningful development of IATC claims on direct appeal, ineffective assistance (or absence) of counsel in the initial state habeas proceeding may supply “cause” to excuse a procedural default of a substantial IATC claim, permitting federal habeas courts to consider the claim’s merits.


Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413 (2013)