In the case of Davila v. Davis, Erick Daniel Davila was convicted for capital murder in Texas and sentenced to death. He argued that his counsel had been ineffective during both trial and state habeas proceedings, but under a procedural rule known as the "procedural default doctrine," he could not raise this claim on federal habeas review because it had not been raised during state court appeals. The U.S Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Davila, holding that claims of ineffective assistance at initial-review collateral proceedings cannot be used to excuse the procedural default of other claims unless they are substantial enough to meet an exception outlined in Martinez v. Ryan (2012) or Trevino v Thaler (2013). This decision reinforced existing precedent regarding when defendants can overcome procedural defaults on their claims.

In the dissenting opinion for Davila v. Davis, Justice Breyer argued that the majority's decision was inconsistent with previous rulings and unfairly penalized defendants who received ineffective counsel during state habeas proceedings. He pointed out that in Martinez v. Ryan and Trevino v. Thaler, the court had recognized exceptions to procedural default rules when a defendant's initial-review collateral lawyer was ineffective at raising an ineffectiveness claim related to trial or appeal lawyers' work. However, this ruling did not extend those exceptions to cases where appellate lawyers were ineffective at raising issues about trial lawyers’ performance on direct review of convictions and sentences - creating what he saw as an arbitrary distinction between different types of legal errors made by defense attorneys.