Opinion
Case No. 2:06-CV-01430-MMS.
October 26, 2009
ORDER GRANTING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY
The court denied petitioner Michael Upton Kershaw's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner has filed a notice of appeal and also applied for a Certificate of Appealability ("COA") with respect to his claim regarding ineffective assistance of counsel. A court may issue a COA when petitioner "has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). A petitioner makes this showing by demonstrating that "reasonable jurists could debate whether . . . the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further." Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The Court finds that reasonable jurists could debate the resolution of Kershaw's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. It is hereby ordered that the Court grant a COA as to the following issue:
Whether Petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated when petitioner's attorneys failed to advise him that he faced a serious possibility of a lengthy sentence if he rejected the State's plea offer and proceeded to trial.