Page:Gilberto Garza, Jr. v. Idaho.pdf/13

10 was denied that proceeding altogether as a result of counsel’s deficient performance.

That Garza surrendered many claims by signing his appeal waivers does not change things. First, this Court has made clear that when deficient counsel causes the loss of an entire proceeding, it will not bend the presumption-of-prejudice rule simply because a particular defendant seems to have had poor prospects. See, e. g., Jae Lee v. United States, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 9). We hew to that principle again here.

Second, while the defendant in Flores-Ortega did not sign an appeal waiver, he did plead guilty, and–as the Court pointed out–“a guilty plea reduces the scope of potentially appealable issues” on its own. See 528 U. S., at 480. In other words, with regard to the defendant’s appellate prospects, Flores-Ortega presented at most a difference of degree, not kind, and prescribed a presumption of prejudice regardless of how many appellate claims were foreclosed. See id., at 484. We do no different today.

Instead, we reaffirm that, “when counsel’s constitutionally deficient performance deprives a defendant of an appeal that he otherwise would have taken, the defendant has made out a successful ineffective assistance of counsel claim entitling him to an appeal,” with no need for a “further showing” of his claims’ merit, ibid., regardless of whether the defendant has signed an appeal waiver.

Flores-Ortega states, in one sentence, that the loss of the “entire [appellate] proceeding itself, which a defendant wanted at the time and to which he had a right,… demands a presumption of prejudice.” Id., at 483. Idaho and the U. S. Government, participating as an amicus on Idaho’s behalf, seize on this language, asserting that Garza never “had a right” to his appeal and thus that any deficient performance by counsel could not have caused