Is ineffective assistance sufficient to establish that ineffective assistance induced a guilty plea?

Such cases are consistent with related decisions that examine claims that ineffective assistance induced a guilty plea, and in which the courts held that a stark assertion of innocence, standing alone, is not sufficient to establish prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Coffin, 76 F.3d 494, 498 (2d Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1147 (1996); Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (1985). In addition to such an assertion - - whether of innocence or of the desire to avoid

Page 7