Opposition Brief — Robert Ward Frazier, Petitioner v. California

No. 24-5910

In the Supreme Court of the United States

ROBERT WARD FRAZIER,

Petitioner,

v.

STATE OF CALIFORNIA,

Respondent.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT

BRIEF IN OPPOSITION

ROB BONTA

Attorney General of California

MICHAEL J. MONGAN

Solicitor General

JAMES WILLIAM BILDERBACK II

Senior Assistant Attorney General

JOSHUA PATASHNIK

Deputy Solicitor General

SARAH J. FARHAT

VICTORIA RATNIKOVA*

Deputy Attorneys General

January 15, 2025

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 11000

San Francisco, CA 94102-7004

(415) 510-3848

Victoria.Ratnikova@doj.ca.gov

*Counsel of Record

i

CAPITAL CASE

QUESTION PRESENTED

A California jury convicted petitioner Robert Ward Frazier of first-degree

murder and other charges. At the penalty phase of his capital trial, he and his

attorneys both sought to avoid a death sentence, but disagreed regarding what

mitigation evidence and arguments to present to the jury. Over Frazier’s

objection, his attorneys presented certain evidence regarding his upbringing

and mental health.

The jury returned a verdict of death.

The question

presented is:

Whether the Sixth Amendment right of an accused to determine the

fundamental objective of his or her defense requires a trial court to allow a

defendant to override defense counsel’s tactical decisions regarding what

mitigation evidence and arguments to present during the penalty phase of a

capital trial.

ii

DIRECTLY RELATED PROCEEDINGS

California Supreme Court:

In re Robert Ward Frazier on Habeas Corpus, No. S285842 (filed July

8, 2024) (pending).

People v. Robert Ward Frazier, No. S148863 (August 5, 2024) (direct

appeal) (this case below).

California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District

Robert Ward Frazier v. Superior Court of Contra Costa County, et al., No.

A113790 (May 18, 2006) (petition for writ of mandate denied).

Contra Costa County Superior Court:

People v. Robert Ward Frazier, No. 5-041700-6 (December 15, 2006)

(entering judgment of conviction and sentence of death).

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Statement ............................................................................................................ 1

Argument ............................................................................................................. 4

Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 15

iv

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page

CASES

Boyd v. State

910 So. 2d 167 (Fla. 2005)............................................................................ 12

Faretta v. California

422 U.S. 806 (1975) ........................................................................................ 1

Gonzalez v. United States

553 U.S. 242 (2008) ........................................................................................ 5

Louisiana v. Brown

No. 21-871, 142 S. Ct. 1702 (2022) .............................................................. 12

Martinez v. Court of Appeal

528 U.S. 152 (2000) ........................................................................................ 9

McCoy v. Louisiana

584 U.S. 414 (2018) ..........................................................................3-9, 11-13

People v. Amezcua

6 Cal. 5th 886 (2019) .................................................................................... 10

People v. Marsden

2 Cal. 3d 118 (1970) ....................................................................................... 1

People v. Windham

19 Cal. 3d 121 (1977) ................................................................................... 10

Roof v. United States

No. 21-7234, 143 S. Ct. 303 (2022) .............................................................. 15

State v. Brown

330 So. 3d 199 (La. 2021) ................................................................. 10, 12, 13

State v. Maestas

299 P.3d 892 (Utah 2012) ...................................................................... 10, 11

State v. Montoya

554 P.3d 473 (Ariz. 2024) ....................................................................... 10, 11

United States v. Read

918 F.3d 712 (9th Cir. 2019) ............................................................ 13, 14, 15

v

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page

United States v. Roof

10 F.4th 314 (4th Cir. 2021) .............................................................. 6, 13, 14

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

United States Constitution Sixth Amendment ........................... 3, 5, 6, 8, 10-14

1

STATEMENT

1. In May 2003, petitioner Robert Ward Frazier repeatedly bludgeoned

Kathleen Louise Loreck over the head with an iron bar and raped and

sodomized her. Pet. App. A 1, 3-8. She died hours later. Id. at 1, 3-4. A jury

convicted Frazier of first-degree murder, forcible rape, and forcible sodomy,

and found true beyond a reasonable doubt the special circumstances of murder

in the commission of rape and murder in the commission of sodomy. Id. at 1.

At the penalty phase of his trial, Frazier made several motions to

represent himself under Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), and to

substitute his two appointed counsel under People v. Marsden, 2 Cal. 3d 118

(1970). Pet. App. A 37-45. In those motions, Frazier complained about certain

aspects of the mitigation evidence his attorneys sought to present.

For example, Frazier objected to his attorneys’ plan to play a video

discussing a study in which monkeys were deprived of maternal contact to

illustrate attachment theory, which defense counsel believed would lend

credence to their arguments regarding Frazier’s family circumstances and

childhood. Pet. App. A 38. Frazier also objected to a video contrasting his

family and upbringing with that of his half-brother, who was raised in a

different household. Id. Frazier asserted that the evidence “‘misrepresent[ed]’

him” and amounted to “‘cheap emotionalism.’” Id. at 39-40. He objected

because “‘promoting the theory that [Frazier is] a product of a dysfunctional

family while projecting images of maternally-deprived apes is likely to be

considered by the jury as pure monkey business rather than [a] mitigating

2

factor.’” Id. at 40; see also id. at 41 (Frazier believed the strategy “‘likely would

only anger the jury, ultimately costing [him his] life’”).

Instead, Frazier

“wished to present to the jury evidence of ‘how [his] friends and loved ones will

be affected’” if he were to be executed. Id. at 40-41.

Frazier objected to several other aspects of his attorneys’ strategy as well.

They presented a witness’s testimony that, as a child, Frazier had said that he

had been molested by an uncle. Pet. App. A 42-43. Frazier disagreed with

counsel’s approach in soliciting that testimony, id. at 43, which Frazier

regarded as “‘slanderous’” of his uncle, id. at 42. Frazier also objected to his

attorneys’ plan to present evidence that he suffered from “‘a genetic brain

abnormality.’” Id. Frazier expressed concern that his attorneys’ strategy was

an “‘attempt to try to make me look like I’m suppressing some kind of mental

illness’” that would “‘be viewed by the jury as nothing more than people trying

to help me because they like me.’” Pet. 7-8 (quoting 51 RT 10381).1

The trial court denied Frazier’s motions for self-representation and for

substitution of counsel, in part because they amounted to tactical

disagreements with his attorneys regarding the presentation of certain

evidence. Pet. App. A 40-45; see 47 RT 9658 (“I understand your right to be

concerned and to have a personal opinion about whether this is somehow

insulting to you, denigrating to you, improper from your point of view, but it is

1 “RT” refers to the Reporter’s Transcript filed in the court of appeal.

3

a decision on trial tactics and strategy[.]”). At the conclusion of the penalty

phase, the jury returned a verdict of death. Pet. App. A 1.

2. The California Supreme Court affirmed. Pet. App. A 1-72. As relevant

here, the court rejected Frazier’s claim that the trial court violated his Sixth

Amendment right to choose the objective of his defense under McCoy v.

Louisiana, 584 U.S. 414 (2018), by allowing defense counsel to present certain

pieces of mitigating evidence over Frazier’s objection. Pet. App. A 60-68. The

court reasoned that McCoy repeatedly acknowledged defense counsel’s

authority to choose the evidence presented in a criminal trial. Id. at 64.

Frazier argued “that his objective ‘was to avoid a death sentence by putting on

a penalty defense that did not require presenting himself as mentally deficient,

slandering a family member, or otherwise presenting intimate and possibly

repugnant details about his life, background, and family.’” Id. at 65. But the

court rejected this “attempt to relabel [Frazier’s] disagreements with counsel

over the presentation of evidence as pertaining to the objective of his penalty

phase defense.” Id. “[H]aving elected to put on a defense in mitigation,” the

court explained, “a defendant cedes to his lawyer the right to control tactical

decisions in furtherance of that defense[.]” Id. at 68.

Justices Liu and Evans each authored opinions dissenting on an

unrelated state law issue.

The dissent by Justice Evans explained why,

notwithstanding her disagreement as to the state law issue, she “agree[d]” with

the Court’s conclusion that “Frazier was not denied his Sixth Amendment

4

right” under McCoy. Pet. App. A 10 (Evans, J.).2 She noted that “Frazier’s

disagreement with counsel . . . was not a disagreement over the objectives of

the defense[,] but instead over the ways to achieve those objectives.” Id.

(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). She observed, as a result,

that “[t]his case does not present, and the court today therefore does not

consider, what the result would have been if a defendant had objected to

certain evidence for nontactical, purely personal reasons.” Id.

ARGUMENT

Frazier asserts that the California Supreme Court’s decision “cannot be

squared with” this Court’s decision in McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U.S. 414 (2018),

Pet. 15, and conflicts with decisions of other federal and state courts, Pet. 2026. Neither argument is persuasive.

1. a. The decision below faithfully implements this Court’s precedent. In

McCoy, “the defendant vociferously insisted” that he did not commit the three

charged murders and objected to his attorney’s plan to admit guilt as to the

charged murders. 584 U.S. at 417. Nevertheless, during the guilt phase of the

capital trial, at which the defendant testified that he had not committed the

murders at issue, defense counsel told the jury the evidence was

“‘unambiguous’” that “‘my client committed three murders’”—an issue on

2 Because the petition appendix does not contain its own page numbers, and

each Justice’s slip opinion is paginated separately, the citations in this

paragraph refer to the page numbers at the bottom of Justice Evans’s opinion,

which follows the majority opinion in the appendix.

5

which defense counsel told jurors he “‘took [the] burden off of [the prosecutor].’”

Id. at 419-420.

This Court held that those circumstances violated the defendant’s Sixth

Amendment right to counsel because “a defendant has the right to insist that

counsel refrain from admitting guilt[.]” McCoy, 584 U.S. at 417. “[I]t is the

defendant’s prerogative, not counsel’s, to decide on the objective of his defense:

to admit guilt in the hope of gaining mercy at the sentencing stage, or to

maintain his innocence, leaving it to the State to prove his guilt beyond a

reasonable doubt.” Id. at 417-418. Like other fundamental trial decisions,

such as “whether to plead guilty, waive the right to a jury trial, testify in one’s

own behalf, and forgo an appeal,” a decision about conceding guilt is not a

“strategic choice[] about how best to achieve a client’s objectives,” but rather a

“choice[] about what the client’s objectives in fact are.” Id. at 422.

But the Court emphasized that “[p]reserving for the defendant the ability

to decide whether to maintain his innocence should not displace counsel’s, or

the court’s, respective trial management roles.” McCoy, 584 U.S. at 423. In

particular, “[t]rial management is the lawyer’s province,” id. at 422, and

“‘numerous choices affecting the conduct of the trial’ do not require client

consent, ‘including the objections to make, the witnesses to call, and the

arguments to advance.’” Id. at 423 (brackets omitted) (quoting Gonzalez v.

United States, 553 U.S. 242, 249 (2008)).

6

The California Supreme Court correctly applied those principles here. It

observed that McCoy “emphasized that a criminal defendant’s Sixth

Amendment autonomy right does not encompass tactical evidentiary

decisions.” Pet. App. A 63. Unlike in McCoy, where counsel and the defendant

disagreed over the objective of whether to concede or contest guilt, here,

Frazier and his attorneys were united in the decision to fight the imposition of

a death sentence.

Their disagreements concerned “the presentation of

evidence,” id. at 65—that is, “‘the witnesses to call, and the arguments to

advance’” in support of mitigation—which, under McCoy, are the sort of “trial

management” decisions that “do not require client consent,” 584 U.S. at 422423.

b. Frazier’s criticisms of the decision below are without merit. He faults

the state court for failing to recognize that his objective was “to avoid the

opprobrium of being labeled mentally and cognitively deficient, and to avoid

falsely maligning his family[.]” Pet. 14. But McCoy does not allow a defendant

to simply “‘declare[] a particular strategy or tactic to be of high priority and

label[] it an “objective.”’” Pet. App. A 65-66 (quoting United States v. Roof, 10

F.4th 314, 353 (4th Cir. 2021)). Frazier and his attorneys shared the same

objective at the penalty phase: convincing the jury not to impose a death

sentence. Frazier’s “disagreement with counsel over the evidence to present

during the penalty phase” was “not a disagreement over the objectives of the

defense[,] but instead over the ways to achieve those objectives.” Id. at 66

7

(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). That situation contrasts

sharply with the facts of McCoy itself and with the other examples McCoy

discussed of disputes regarding what the client’s “objectives in fact are”—such

as a defendant who opts to pursue even a “‘minuscule’” chance of acquittal

rather than seek to avoid a death sentence. 584 U.S. at 423.

Moreover, the disagreement between Frazier and his attorneys primarily

stemmed from their contrasting assessment of which arguments, themes, and

evidence would be most persuasive to the jury. For example, in objecting to

the proposed mitigation evidence regarding his difficult upbringing, Frazier

told the trial court that he believed the jury would consider it “‘pure monkey

business rather than [a] mitigating factor’” and “‘likely would only anger the

jury, ultimately costing [him his] life.’” Pet. App. A 40, 41; see id. at 66.

Instead, Frazier proposed to present evidence regarding how his “‘friends and

loved ones [would] be affected’” by his execution. Id. at 40-41. Choosing

between those approaches is a quintessential decision of trial tactics reserved

for defense counsel.3

3 To be sure, some of Frazier’s objections were more personal in nature.

For

instance, he viewed as “‘slanderous’” certain evidence that he had been

“molested by an uncle,” and he “disputed the suggestion that he had ‘a genetic

brain abnormality.’” Pet. App. A 42. But those objections likewise did not

undermine or affect Frazier and his attorneys’ shared “fundamental objective”

at the penalty stage of avoiding a death sentence. McCoy, 584 U.S. at 426

(emphasis added). In any event, as the California Supreme Court reasoned,

where a defendant offers both tactical and non-tactical reasons for objecting to

evidence, McCoy does not “require a court to untangle” the defendant’s

rationales. Pet. App. A 66.

8

Frazier compares himself to the defendant in McCoy, who this Court

hypothesized might have objected to conceding guilt because of a desire to

“avoid . . . the opprobrium that comes with admitting he killed family

members.” 584 U.S. at 423; see Pet. 14. That passage of McCoy explained why

a defendant may value a slight chance of acquittal as his objective over that of

avoiding a death sentence by conceding that he was guilty.

The Court’s

analysis does not suggest that a defendant’s concern about “opprobrium” can

transform tactical decisions about the presentation of evidence into a different

objective that gives the defendant a Sixth Amendment veto over his attorney’s

tactical judgment.

Frazier next contends that even if his attorneys’ penalty-phase choices

were otherwise “an aspect of trial management that counsel [could] decide

without express consent” from the client, the attorneys were obligated to follow

his wishes “once Mr. Frazier was fully informed of counsel’s strategy and made

it clear that he objected to certain aspects of the penalty phase defense.”

Pet. 17. But McCoy does not support that view. When this Court distinguished

between the client’s right to control “the fundamental objective of the

defendant’s representation” and counsel’s ability to decide matters such as

“‘the objections to make, the witnesses to call, and the arguments to advance,’”

the point was that the client’s veto power extends only to the former, not the

latter. McCoy, 584 U.S. at 423, 426.

9

For similar reasons, there is no merit to Frazier’s complaint that, under

the decision below, his only methods to avoid the mitigation evidence to which

he objected would have been to “waiv[e] counsel or direct[] counsel to wholly

forego a penalty defense”—an “all or nothing approach” that, he asserts, this

Court rejected in McCoy. Pet. 18-19 (citing McCoy, 584 U.S. at 421). The

Court’s reference to an “all or nothing” requirement in McCoy concerned

whether a defendant who desires counsel must accept his counsel’s pursuit of

a different “fundamental objective,” such as conceding rather than contesting

guilt. 584 U.S. at 421, 426. It does not suggest that the Constitution empowers

a client to override his lawyer’s determination regarding tactical decisions. See

id. at 422.

Finally, Frazier suggests that a defendant in California who wishes to

limit the presentation of mitigation evidence at the penalty phase may find

himself unable to either “direct counsel to forego a penalty defense” or seek

self-representation. Pet. 19-20. But Frazier’s petition does not present any

such issues for review, because he never sought to forgo a penalty-phase

defense, see Pet. App. A 37-45, and he does not take issue with the state court’s

determination that his request to represent himself was untimely, see id. at

46-52; see generally Martinez v. Court of Appeal, 528 U.S. 152, 161 (2000)

(“most courts” require a defendant requesting self-representation to “do so in

a timely manner”).

Frazier’s arguments also lack merit.

The California

Supreme Court has suggested that, under McCoy, a defendant may direct

10

counsel to forgo a penalty-phase defense. See People v. Amezcua, 6 Cal. 5th

886, 925-926 (2019). And California trial courts retain discretion to grant selfrepresentation to defendants seeking it for the first time after the guilt phase.

See Pet. App. A 50-52; People v. Windham, 19 Cal. 3d 121, 124 (1977).

2. Frazier also contends that the decision below conflicts with decisions

by other state and federal courts. Pet. 20-26. That too is incorrect.

a. Frazier argues that the California Supreme Court’s decision conflicts

with three other state high court decisions: State v. Maestas, 299 P.3d 892

(Utah 2012); State v. Brown, 330 So. 3d 199 (La. 2021); and State v. Montoya,

554 P.3d 473 (Ariz. 2024). See Pet. 20-23. It does not.

In both Maestas and Montoya, the defendants wished to “waive the right

to present mitigating evidence” at the penalty phase, and the trial courts

allowed them to do so. Maestas, 299 P.3d at 955; see Montoya, 554 P.3d at 491,

506. 4 After they were sentenced to death, they argued on appeal that in

accepting their waivers of the right to present mitigation evidence, the trial

courts had violated their right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment. See

Maestas, 299 P.3d at 958; Montoya, 554 P.3d at 506. In each case, the state

4 In

Maestas, the defendant initially presented some mitigation evidence

regarding his upbringing and family circumstances, 299 P.3d at 955-956, but

the following day “‘knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently . . . waived [the]

right to present’” “‘any other mitigating evidence,’” id. at 957. In Montoya, the

defendant “generally waived the presentation of mitigation evidence,” but

“permitted his attorneys to submit the records of his guilty plea and mitigation

waiver hearings as evidence of his acceptance of responsibility[.]” 554 P.3d at

491.

11

high court rejected the claim. As the Utah Supreme Court explained, “the

decision to waive the right to present mitigating evidence is not a mere tactical

decision that is best left to counsel,” but is rather “a fundamental decision” that

“often involves information that is very personal to the defendant, such as

intimate, and possibly repugnant, details about the defendant’s life,

background, and family.” Maestas, 299 P.3d at 959 (footnotes omitted); see also

Montoya, 554 P.3d at 507.

These cases differ from Frazier’s in two respects. First, Maestas and

Montoya held that the Sixth Amendment does not require counsel to override

their clients’ considered decisions as to aspects of the mitigation case. That

does not conflict with the decision here, which held that the Constitution does

not forbid counsel from overriding their clients’ choices. Second, both Maestas

and Montoya involved defendants who wished to waive or abandon the

presentation of mitigation evidence. See supra pp. 10-11 & n.4. Here, Frazier

sought to require his counsel to present evidence and argument supporting a

different theory of mitigation that Frazier thought would be more persuasive

to the jury than the approach his trial counsel proposed. See supra pp. 1-2;

Pet. App. A 40-41.

Even assuming the Sixth Amendment affords capital

defendants a right to waive the presentation of mitigation evidence, it does not

necessarily follow that they also have a right to order their attorney to present

different mitigation evidence and arguments than the attorney proposes.

Cf. McCoy, 584 U.S. at 422-423.

12

Nor does the decision below conflict with Brown. There, the defendant

objected to counsel’s plan to call the defendant’s mother and uncle to testify as

mitigation witnesses during the penalty phase. 330 So. 3d at 219. He did so

not for tactical reasons, but for personal reasons: He believed that there was

“‘stuff that’s in the past that . . . should stay in the past’” and that had taken

his mother “‘many, many years to get over.’” Id. at 219. The defendant told

the court: “‘I’m willing to accept death before I let my mother get on the stand.’”

Id. Given that stark and emphatic preference, the Louisiana Supreme Court

held that the defendant had a Sixth Amendment right to prevent counsel from

calling the mother and uncle as witnesses. Id. at 217.5 The court apparently

concluded that, on the facts of that case, the decision whether to put the

defendant’s mother and uncle on the witness stand was a “fundamental choice”

(McCoy, 584 U.S. at 428) about the objectives of the defense. See Brown, 330

So. 3d at 224-225 (citing and discussing McCoy).6

That holding, on the unique and extreme facts of Brown, does not imply

that the Louisiana Supreme Court would grant relief in a case like this one.

5 This Court then denied Louisiana’s certiorari petition, which argued in part

that the Louisiana Supreme Court had improperly extended McCoy to the facts

of that case. Pet. for Writ of Cert. at 14-23, Louisiana v. Brown, No. 21-871

(Dec. 9, 2021); see 142 S. Ct. 1702 (2022).

6 To the extent Frazier reads Brown as holding more broadly that the Sixth

Amendment affords capital defendants an unlimited “right to limit the amount

and/or type of mitigating evidence counsel may present,” 330 So. 3d at 226

(citing Boyd v. State, 910 So. 2d 167, 189-190 (Fla. 2005)), that theory could

not be squared with McCoy, which emphasizes that decisions regarding what

evidence to present generally rest with counsel, see 584 U.S. at 422.

13

Unlike the defendant in Brown, Frazier objected to his attorneys’ proposed

mitigation evidence for both tactical and non-tactical reasons. See supra at 12; Pet. App. A 40-41. The California Supreme Court explained that in that

situation, McCoy does not “require a court to untangle such objectives,” Pet.

App. A 66, and the Louisiana Supreme Court could well reach the same

conclusion if presented with such a scenario. For that matter, it is not clear

that the California Supreme Court would deny relief to a defendant on the facts

of Brown. Justice Evans, who joined the majority in rejecting Frazier’s Sixth

Amendment claim, expressed her view that “[t]his case does not present, and

the court today therefore does not consider, what the result would have been if

a defendant had objected to certain evidence for nontactical, purely personal

reasons.” Pet. App. A 10 (Evans, J., dissenting on other grounds).

b. Frazier further contends that the decision below implicates a conflict

among lower courts “about the type of ‘opprobrium’ that is relevant to a capital

defendant’s right to control the fundamental objectives of their trial.” Pet. 23.

Specifically, Frazier perceives a conflict between the Fourth Circuit’s decision

in Roof, 10 F.4th 314, which the California Supreme Court cited approvingly

here, and United States v. Read, 918 F.3d 712 (9th Cir. 2019). Pet. 24-26. That

alleged conflict does not merit review either.

In Roof, the Fourth Circuit rejected the defendant’s argument that he had

a Sixth Amendment autonomy right to “‘prevent the presentation of mental

health mitigation evidence.’”

10 F.4th at 350.

It reasoned that “[t]he

14

presentation of mental health mitigation evidence is . . . a classic tactical

decision left to counsel even when the client disagrees.” Id. at 352 (internal

quotation marks and alteration omitted). In Read, the Ninth Circuit held that

a criminal defendant has a “Sixth Amendment right to demand that counsel

not present an insanity defense,” 918 F.3d at 715, because “[a]n insanity

defense is tantamount to a concession of guilt” and “carries grave personal

consequences that go beyond the sphere of trial tactics,” including “the prospect

of ‘indefinite commitment to a state institution,’” id. at 720.

The decision below aligns with Roof in rejecting the defendant’s “attempt

to relabel his disagreements with counsel” regarding the presentation of

penalty-phase mitigation evidence “as pertaining to the objective of his penalty

phase defense.” Pet. App. A 65-66 (citing Roof, 10 F.4th at 352-353). There is

no conflict between those two decisions and Read. As the California Supreme

Court and the Fourth Circuit have each recognized, asserting an insanity

defense is not analogous to introducing mental-health or family-history

mitigation evidence. Unlike asserting an insanity defense, the presentation of

mitigation evidence does not “plac[e] the defendant at risk of ‘confinement in a

mental institution.’”

Id. at 67; see also Roof, 10 F.4th at 352-353

(distinguishing Read on similar grounds). Similarly, any “‘stigma’” associated

with mental health problems is “‘simply not of the same legal magnitude as a

confession of guilt.’” Pet. App. A 67; see also Roof, 10 F.4th 352-353. Indeed,

this Court denied a certiorari petition in Roof that asserted a conflict with

15

Read, among other cases. Pet. for Writ of Cert. at 10-21, Roof v. United States,

No. 21-7234 (Dec. 10, 2021); see 143 S. Ct. 303 (2022). There was no conflict

then, and there is no conflict now.

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.

Respectfully submitted,

ROB BONTA

Attorney General of California

MICHAEL J. MONGAN

Solicitor General

JAMES WILLIAM BILDERBACK II

Senior Assistant Attorney General

JOSHUA PATASHNIK

Deputy Solicitor General

SARAH J. FARHAT

S/Victoria Ratnikova

VICTORIA RATNIKOVA

Deputy Attorneys General

January 15, 2025