Whether the Court should resolve the following question for which there is a clear circuit split: does the Court's holding in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), prohibit – as a matter of law – a criminal defendant from obtaining relief due to an attorney's deficient performance/failure to request a jury instruction on a lesser-included offense (i.e., does the fact that there is sufficient evidence in the record to support the charged offense per se prevent a defendant from establishing that a defense attorney was ineffective for failing to request a jury instruction for a lesser offense – or should a court instead analyze whether there is a "reasonable probability" that the jury would have convicted the defendant of only the lesser offense).

Whether the Court should resolve the clear circuit split on whether Strickland-v-Washington prohibits a criminal defendant from obtaining relief due to an attorney's deficient performance/failure to request a jury instruction on a lesser-included offense