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In a decision you aren't likely to read or hear much about, the United States Supreme Court this morning unanimously rejected a claim by a convicted murderer who argued that she was denied her Sixth Amendment right to the "effective assistance of counsel" because her lawyer counseled her to reject a manslaughter plea deal without first adequately investigating the facts of her case.

To reach this result, all nine justices were willing to overturn a decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had concluded that the lawyer violated the constitutional rights of his client in part because the "record in this case contains no evidence that" he gave her adequate legal advice on whether to withdraw that manslaughter plea. Vonlee Nicole Titlow was instead tried, quickly convicted, and sentenced to 20-40 years in prison.

The ruling in Burt v. Titlow is rather short and worth reading in its entirety. From it you can glean that this defendant had several different opportunities to change her fate; in that respect, this is not the "typical" right-to-counsel case where a hapless defendant is pushed inexorably through a justice system designed to ensure a conviction. The client here, in other words, is not blameless for the result that has befallen her.