WASHINGTON — Two weeks before Robert McCoy was to be tried for a triple murder, his lawyer paid him a visit. It was the summer of 2011, and the two men met in a holding cell in a Louisiana courthouse. Mr. McCoy, who was facing the death penalty, told his lawyer he was innocent.

Mr. McCoy was adamant. Others had committed the crimes, he said, and he wanted to clear his name.

The lawyer, Larry English, said he had a different strategy.

“I met with Robert at the courthouse and explained to him that I intended to concede that he had killed the three victims,” Mr. English recalled in a sworn statement. “Robert was furious and it was a very intense meeting. He told me not to make that concession, but I told him that I was going to do so.”

Capital trials have two phases. The first concerns guilt, the other punishment. Mr. English reasoned that he would forfeit his credibility with the jury if he contested what he believed was overwhelming evidence against his client in the trial’s first phase. He feared the jurors would not listen to him when he begged them to spare Mr. McCoy’s life in the second phase.