Crawford v. Mississippi

_________________
_________________
1 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 25–385 (25A378)
CHARLES RAY CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY AND ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF MISSISSIPPI
[October 15, 2025]
The application for stay of execution of sentence of death
presented to J
USTICE ALITO and by him referred to the
Court is denied. The petition for a writ of certiorari is de-
nied.
J
USTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and
J
USTICE JACKSON join, dissenting from the denial of appli-
cation for stay and denial of certiorari.
Charles Ray Crawford will be executed tonight for a
crime that his own lawyers told the jury he committed, de-
spite his express instructions not to do so. Had this case
come to this Court on direct appeal, Crawford could have
proved that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated un-
der our decision in McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U. S. 414
(2018), in which we held that lawyers may not override a
defendant’s explicit and unequivocal decision not to concede
guilt at trial. He would also likely be entitled to a new trial,
as a McCoy violation is a structural error that mandates
reversal.
Because Crawford’s convictions became final before
McCoy was decided, however, this case raises a threshold
issue that this Court has not squarely resolved: Whether
McCoy applies to cases on collateral review because it
merely applied existing law, or whether McCoy announced
a nonretroactive “new” rule of constitutional law. This
question has divided lower courts. It is also undoubtedly
important, and is even more so in this case because its

2 CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
answer determines whether Crawford will be executed. I
would therefore grant Crawford’s application for a stay of
execution and petition for certiorari. As the Court aban-
dons its duty to resolve this important question, I respect-
fully dissent.
I
In September 1993, Crawford was indicted for murdering
Kristy Ray. See Crawford v. State, 716 So. 2d 1028, 1031
(Miss. 1998). The State alleged that Crawford kidnapped,
raped, and stabbed Ray. Id., at 1031–1037. Crawford dis-
puted these allegations and pleaded not guilty.
The trial court appointed two attorneys to assist Craw-
ford in his defense. Crawford grew upset with his lawyers
because he did not believe that they were adequately inves-
tigating the charges against him. He sent them several let-
ters from jail urging them to do more. He described in de-
tail the pretrial motions he wanted them to file, the lines of
attack he wanted them to pursue, and the evidence he
wanted them to put on, all in pursuit of showing at trial
that the State did not prove each element of its case against
him. See Exhs. F, J.
1
Simply put, Crawford had one goal: to be found “not
guilty.” He instructed his counsel: “Any mistake, no matter
how great or small, made by the prosecution in preparing
its case against me must be brought before the court and
put on record!” Exh. F, p. 12 (spelling corrected, emphasis
in original). He also reminded his counsel: “Until all 12
members of a jury find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
of every element of the crimes I’ve been charged with? I am
still innocent!!” Id., at 13 (spelling corrected, emphasis in
original).
——————
1
Citations to exhibits are to the exhibits attached to Crawford’s Peti-
tion for Post-Conviction Relief before the Mississippi Supreme Court, No.
2024–DR–01386–SCT (filed Dec. 12, 2024).

3 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
Crawford’s lawyers did not listen. Not because they mis-
understood Crawford, but because they chose not to. As one
of the lawyers later attested, they knew full well that Craw-
ford had “objected to the concession of his guilt and the pur-
suit of an insanity defense before and during trial.” Exh. A,
at 1. Even so, they did the exact opposite of what Crawford
asked of them: They conceded to the jury that Crawford had
killed Ray and pursued an insanity defense.
Crawford’s lawyers’ first concession came before the jury
was even seated. During voir dire, they told potential ju-
rors that “the State . . . will be primarily concerned almost
exclusively with the ‘what’ of this case. What happened?
. . . What did [Crawford] do?” Exh. M, at 309. They clari-
fied, however, that the jurors should not “anticipate a de-
fense or that the defense is going to be able to . . . prevent
[the State] from showing that [Crawford] did in fact commit
the acts that he is charged with. The ‘what’ is not going to
be very much in question here.” Id., at 310. Crawford’s
lawyers repeated these points during opening arguments.
See id., at 415–416. During closing arguments, counsel
again told the jury that “[t]he what of this case is not in
question,” because “[n]o one” other than Crawford “is le-
gally responsible for what happened here.” Id., at 1179.
Counsel also told the jury there was “certainly not” “any
question” that he “is still dangerous to the community” and
that he understood if the jurors thought Crawford was a
“monster” who should not be “turn[ed] . . . loose.” Id., at
1189–1190.
Crawford vigorously objected to these concessions
throughout trial. He told the judge: “I have got copies of
letters here that I sent my attorneys and things that I
wanted them to do . . . . They have not done them. They
came here yesterday [and] told the jury that I was already
guilty before the trial started and I do not recognize them
as my attorneys any more.” Id., at 409. He also moved for
a mistrial on the ground that “the jury was tainted from the

4 CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
beginning” and had been further tainted by his counsel’s
repeated admissions of guilt. Id., at 819–820. In his view,
his lawyers “might as well [have] been sitting over there
with the prosecution.” Id., at 820.
The trial judge overruled Crawford’s objections and de-
nied his motion for a mistrial. The jury convicted Crawford
and sentenced him to death. The Mississippi Supreme
Court affirmed Crawford’s conviction and sentence in 1998.
Crawford has continued to challenge his convictions and
death sentence in both state and federal postconviction pro-
ceedings. See, e.g., Crawford v. State, 867 So. 2d 196
(2003); Crawford v. Epps, 353 Fed. Appx. 977 (CA5 2009);
Crawford v. State, 218 So. 3d 1142 (Miss. 2016); see also
Crawford v. Cain, 122 F. 4th 158 (CA5 2024).
After the State moved for a death warrant, Crawford filed
this postconviction motion before the Mississippi Supreme
Court in December 2024. He claimed that, under McCoy v.
Louisiana, 584 U. S. 414, his conviction must be vacated be-
cause his Sixth Amendment right to maintain his innocence
was violated by his counsel’s concessions of guilt at trial.
The Mississippi Supreme Court did not act on the motion
for eight months. It then issued a death warrant for Craw-
ford and a short order denying relief on the ground that
Crawford’s McCoy claim was barred. ___ So. 3d ___, ___,
2025 WL 2675597, *1 (Sept. 12, 2025); Pet. App. 5a–6a. It
began by noting that Crawford’s petition was subject to
Mississippi’s timeliness and successive-writ bars unless he
could show that McCoy qualified as an “intervening deci-
sion” that exempted him from them. 2025 WL 2675597, *1;
see Miss. Code Ann. §§99–39–5(2)(a)(i), 99–39–27(9) (1973–
2020). It declined to apply that exception. It first explained
that Crawford had “waited seven years to file this claim af-
ter the decision in McCoy was issued.” 2025 WL 2675597,
*1. It then held that “Crawford [had] not shown that McCoy
should be given retroactive effect.” Ibid. This petition for

5 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
a stay and petition for writ of certiorari followed less than
three weeks later.
II
As a threshold matter, Mississippi argues that we lack
jurisdiction to hear this case because Crawford’s motion
was procedurally barred as untimely and successive under
state law. Neither ground precludes review here.
This Court will not review a state-court decision that
rests on adequate and independent state-law grounds.
Glossip v. Oklahoma, 604 U. S. 226, 242 (2025). “A state
ground of decision is independent only when it does not de-
pend on a federal holding, and also is not intertwined with
questions of federal law.” Ibid. (citation omitted). A state-
law ground’s independence must be “‘clear from the face of
the opinion.’” Ibid. (quoting Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S.
1032, 1040–1041 (1983)).
The Mississippi Supreme Court’s opinion is intertwined
with federal law. It rejected the intervening-decision excep-
tion on the grounds that McCoy was not retroactive. 2025
WL 2675597, *1. That is a squarely federal issue, as “[t]he
determination whether a constitutional decision of this
Court is retroactive . . . is a matter of federal law.” Ameri-
can Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Smith, 496 U. S. 167, 177
(1990) (plurality opinion); Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Tax-
ation, 509 U. S. 86, 100 (1993) (“The Supremacy Clause
does not allow federal retroactivity doctrine to be sup-
planted by the invocation of a contrary approach to retroac-
tivity under state law” (citation omitted)); Yates v. Aiken,
484 U. S. 211, 214–218 (1988).
The State contends that the intervening-decision excep-
tion does not turn on whether a rule is retroactive but turns
instead on a state-law determination whether McCoy qual-
ified as an “intervening decisio[n]” that “‘would have actu-
ally adversely affected’” Crawford’s case. Brief in Opposi-
tion 19. That reasoning, however, appears nowhere on the

6 CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
face of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s opinion, see 2025
WL 2675597, *1, and so it does not bar our review here, see
Long, 463 U. S., at 1040–1041. In any event, whether
McCoy would have affected Crawford’s conviction neces-
sarily depends on federal law because a McCoy violation is
a structural error that automatically entitles a defendant
to a reversal of his conviction. See 584 U. S., at 427–428.
To be sure, the Mississippi Supreme Court also observed
that Crawford did not file this motion until seven years af-
ter McCoy was decided. 2025 WL 2675597, *1. It is not
clear that the court rejected Crawford’s claim on this basis,
so it cannot independently support the judgment below.
See, e.g., Long, 463 U. S., at 1040–1401. Nor does the
State’s opposition argue that this delay alone deprives the
Court of jurisdiction. That is not surprising, as the Missis-
sippi Supreme Court has long recognized that state law
specifies no “time limitation in which to file a second or suc-
cessive application if such application meets one of the stat-
utory exceptions,” such as the intervening-decision excep-
tion. See Bell v. State, 66 So. 3d 90, 93 (2011) (granting
relief on a motion filed eight years after the intervening de-
cision from this Court on which the motion was based). We
thus have jurisdiction.
III
To grant a stay, this Court must find a reasonable proba-
bility that the Court would vote to grant certiorari, a signif-
icant possibility of reversal, and a likelihood of irreparable
injury to the applicant without a stay. Barefoot v. Estelle,
463 U. S. 880, 895 (1983). Crawford’s application meets
these criteria. There is no question that Crawford will suf-
fer irreparable harm if he is executed before the weighty
constitutional issues he raises are resolved. As for the other
factors, the Mississippi Supreme Court’s retroactivity hold-
ing warrants this Court’s review because it implicates a
split among the lower courts on an important constitutional

7 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
issue. Crawford has also shown a significant possibility of
reversal because the decision below is deeply flawed. Fi-
nally, although Crawford did not raise his McCoy claim un-
til after the State sought a death warrant, that delay does
not require denial here.
A
First, this case warrants our review because it implicates
a split among the lower courts on an important issue that
will decide whether Crawford lives or dies: Whether McCoy
is retroactive and applies to individuals like Crawford who
are litigating their claims in the postconviction setting.
At the outset, a case decided after a conviction becomes
final applies retroactively if it either (1) merely applied set-
tled law to a new factual context or (2) announced a “new”
substantive rule of law that removed certain conduct from
criminal prohibition. Chaidez v. United States, 568 U. S.
342, 347–348, and n. 3 (2013). A new procedural rule will
not be given retroactive effect. Edwards v. Vannoy, 593
U. S. 255, 273 (2021).
Courts have come to different conclusions over where
McCoy falls within this framework. Two courts hold that
McCoy applies retroactively because it did not announce a
new rule of constitutional law. In their view, McCoy applied
pre-existing precedents to a new factual circumstance. See
In re Smith, 49 Cal. App. 5th 377, 390–392, 263 Cal. Rptr.
3d 63, 73–74 (2020) (explaining that McCoy did not an-
nounce a new rule); Jan G. v. Commissioner of Correction,
2023 WL 8431827, *18–*20 (Conn. Super. Ct., Nov. 20,
2023) (same).
The Mississippi Supreme Court, on the other hand, held
in this case that McCoy is not retroactive, apparently on the
ground that McCoy announced a new rule that is procedural
and not substantive. See 2025 WL 2675597, *1; see also
Miss. Motion to Dismiss in No. 2024–DR–01386–SCT 7 (ar-
guing that McCoy announced a nonretroactive new rule).

8 CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
The Fourth Circuit has also suggested, though it did not de-
cide, that “McCoy might . . . be considered a new rule.”
Smith v. Stein, 982 F. 3d 229, 234 (2020).
This split goes to the heart of defendants’ Sixth Amend-
ment rights to control their own defense. As we explained
in McCoy, depriving a defendant of his “Sixth Amendment-
secured autonomy” violates “the fundamental legal princi-
ple that a defendant must be allowed to make his own
choices about the proper way to protect his own liberty.”
584 U. S., at 427 (internal quotation marks omitted). It also
causes “immeasurable” harm to a defendant, because “a
jury would almost certainly be swayed by a lawyer’s conces-
sion of his client’s guilt.” Id., at 428.
The importance of the question whether McCoy is retro-
active is on full display in this case. McCoy violations are
so antithetical to the Sixth Amendment that they are
treated as “structural” errors “not subject to harmless-error
review.” Id., at 427. Accordingly, if Crawford prevails on
his McCoy claim, he would be automatically entitled to re-
versal of his conviction and sentence and would not be fac-
ing execution tonight.
The Court’s review is needed to resolve the lower courts’
disagreement on this fundamental question. Indeed, this
Court routinely grants certiorari on important questions in
capital cases without any split at all.
2
B
Second, Crawford has shown a significant possibility of
reversal. Mississippi now correctly concedes before this
Court that McCoy is retroactive because the rule it applied
is not new. And if McCoy retroactively applies to
——————
2
See, e.g., Pet. for Cert., Ramirez v. Collier, No. 21-5592 (U. S. Sept. 7,
2021) (no split); Pet. for Cert., Gutierrez v. Saenz, No. 19–8695 (U. S.
June 15, 2020) (no split); see also Pet. for Cert. 17–19, Glossip v. Okla-
homa, No. 22-7466 (U. S. May 4, 2023) (alleging a shallower split than
the one present here).

9 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
Crawford’s case, then relief is warranted because it was
clearly violated at Crawford’s trial.
1
As mentioned, cases applying old rules to a new context
are retroactive, and cases applying new rules are not retro-
active unless they are substantive. Chaidez, 568 U. S.,
at 347–348, and n. 3. A case “does not announce a new rule
when it is merely an application of the principle that gov-
erned a prior decision to a different set of facts.” Id., at 347–
348 (brackets, emphasis, and quotation marks omitted).
“[W]here the beginning point of our analysis is a rule of gen-
eral application, a rule designed for the specific purpose of
evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infre-
quent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new
rule, one not dictated by precedent.” Id., at 348 (quotation
marks omitted).
As Mississippi now recognizes, McCoy readily qualifies as
an old rule because it “did not . . . change the landscape of
Sixth Amendment claims about the right to make a de-
fense.” Brief in Opposition 17. The Sixth Amendment
guarantees a criminal defendant the “assistance of counsel
for his defence.” The right to counsel is “personal” because
it is “the defendant, and not his lawyer,” who “will bear the
personal consequences of a conviction.” Faretta v. Califor-
nia, 422 U. S. 806, 834 (1975). The defendant’s “choice” in
exercising that right “must be honored out of ‘that respect
for the individual which is the lifeblood of the law.’” Ibid.
(quoting Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337, 350–351 (1970)
(Brennan, J., concurring)); see Gannett Co. v. DePasquale,
443 U. S. 368, 382, n. 10 (1979) (“[T]he [Sixth] Amendment
. . . contemplat[es] a norm in which the accused, and not a
lawyer, is master of his own defense”). Consistent with the
basic principle that the accused is in control of his own de-
fense, the Court has long recognized that attorneys may not
override “certain fundamental decisions” made by the

10 CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
defendant, such as “whether to plead guilty, waive a jury,
testify in his or her own behalf, [] take an appeal,” or even
“act as his or her own advocate.” Jones v. Barnes, 463 U. S.
745, 751 (1983); see Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U. S. 1, 7
(1966).
McCoy’s holding directly followed from the Court’s prior
cases such as Faretta and Jones. “Just as a defendant may
steadfastly refuse to plead guilty in the face of overwhelm-
ing evidence against [him], or reject the assistance of legal
counsel despite the defendant’s own inexperience,” so too
may a defendant “insist on maintaining [his] innocence.”
McCoy, 584 U. S., at 422. That is because “[t]hese are not
strategic choices about how best to achieve [his] objectives”
but rather “choices about what [his] objectives in fact are.”
Ibid. (emphasis in original). Indeed, for decades prior to
McCoy, the clear consensus among lower courts was that a
defendant has the right to insist on his innocence and that
the attorney cannot override that choice.
3
Before Craw-
ford’s conviction in this case, moreover, the American Bar
Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct specified
that “[a] lawyer shall abide by a client’s decisions concern-
ing the objectives of representation.” Am. Bar. Assn., Model
Rules of Prof. Conduct R. 1.2(a) (1989).
In view of all these pre-McCoy authorities, Crawford has
a strong argument that McCoy’s holding was nothing new
and that it therefore should apply to his case.
2
If McCoy does apply to Crawford’s case on postconviction
review, then there is little question that Crawford is
——————
3
See, e.g., Wiley v. Sowders, 647 F. 2d 642, 650 (CA6 1981); Francis v.
Spraggins, 720 F. 2d 1190, 1194–1195 (CA11 1983); State v. Anaya, 592
A. 2d 1142, 1145–1146 (N. H. 1991); State v. Carter, 14 P. 3d 1138, 1148
(Kan. 2000); Cooke v. State, 977 A. 2d 803, 849–850 (Del. 2009); People v.
Bergerud, 223 P. 3d 686, 699 (Colo. 2010); cf. Jones v. State, 877 P. 2d
1052, 1056–1057 (Nev. 1994); State v. Harbison, 337 S. E. 2d 504, 506–
507 (N. C. 1985).

11 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
entitled to relief because Crawford’s Sixth Amendment
rights were violated at his trial. Crawford was unequivocal
in defining the goal of his defense: to maintain his inno-
cence and require the Government to prove each element of
its case against him. His attorneys took the opposite ap-
proach. They told the jury at every step of the trial, from
jury selection through closing arguments, that the State
was right and that Crawford killed Ray. The record could
not be clearer that what Crawford defined, his counsel de-
fied.
Resisting this conclusion, the State contends that defense
counsel did not concede guilt because counsel pursued an
insanity defense, which technically results in an acquittal.
That hair-splitting argument misses the mark entirely. See
United States v. Read, 918 F. 3d 712, 719–721 (CA9 2019)
(rejecting this argument). First, we made clear in McCoy
that a defendant has a constitutional right “to decide that
the objective of [his] defense is to assert innocence,” not just
to obtain a technical acquittal. 584 U. S., at 422 (emphasis
added). Second, the difference between a verdict of “not
guilty” and a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity” is
highly consequential. The former is an exoneration; the lat-
ter leads to a defendant’s commitment at a state psychiatric
hospital. See Miss. Code Ann. §99-13-7(1); Ex. M, at 1190–
1191 (defense counsel stating during closing argument that
there is “certainly not” “any question . . . that Charles Ray
Crawford is still dangerous to the community” and should
not be “put . . . on the street”). The right to direct the goals
of one’s criminal defense plainly includes the right to decide
whether to pursue freedom rather than confinement.
Crawford’s lawyers, however, deprived him of that basic
right. And because the Court declines to act, Crawford will
be sent to his death without ever having had a real oppor-
tunity to hold the State to its burden of proving his guilt.

12 CRAWFORD v. MISSISSIPPI
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
3
Finally, without doubt, Crawford could have brought his
McCoy claim earlier and before the State sought a death
warrant. As the Court has acknowledged, granting a stay
in late-stage capital litigation, especially when a litigant
could have asserted his claim earlier, is generally disfa-
vored. Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern
Dist. of Cal., 503 U. S. 653, 654 (1992) (per curiam).
Crawford’s delay, however, is not disqualifying in this
case. That is because Mississippi law did not require Craw-
ford to litigate this claim any sooner. As the Mississippi
Supreme Court observed in 2011, Mississippi law does not
impose a filing deadline on a successive habeas petition
filed after an intervening decision. Bell, 66 So. 3d, at 93. In
the 14 years since then, Mississippi has not amended its
law to impose one. The State also cites no cases in which
the Mississippi Supreme Court denied relief on timeliness
grounds despite a qualifying intervening decision.
Given Mississippi’s failure to protect its own interest in
finality, I would not deny this petition simply because
Crawford could have filed it earlier, especially considering
the other factors that strongly weigh in favor of granting
relief. I would instead exercise our broad discretion to stay
Crawford’s execution, resolve this important question, and
fulfill “our duty to search for constitutional error with
painstaking care [which] is never more exacting than it is
in a capital case.” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 422
(1995) (quotation marks, brackets omitted); cf. Shinn v.
Martinez Ramirez, 596 U. S. 366, 375, n. 1 (2022) (choosing
to forgive the State’s forfeiture of an argument in a capital
case).
***
Charles Ray Crawford has identified an important con-
stitutional issue that this Court has not addressed and has
divided courts around the country. The Court refuses to

13 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
S
OTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
resolve that question, even though a man’s life is in the bal-
ance. For these reasons, the Court should have granted
Crawford’s motion for a stay of execution and petition for
writ of certiorari. I respectfully dissent.