In the case of Joseph Massaro v. United States, 2002, Massaro was convicted for racketeering and murder. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that his counsel had been ineffective by failing to raise a conflict-of-interest objection during trial due to one of the government's witnesses being represented by a lawyer from the same firm as Massaro's defense attorney. The Second Circuit Court rejected this claim because it hadn't been raised in earlier proceedings. However, when brought before the Supreme Court, they unanimously reversed this decision stating that defendants do not have to bring claims of ineffective assistance of counsel on direct appeal but can instead raise them in collateral review (habeas corpus petitions). The court reasoned that evidence about counsel’s performance is often better developed in habeas proceedings than on direct appeal and thus more appropriate for such cases.

In the case of Joseph Massaro v. United States, there was no formal dissenting opinion issued by any of the justices on the Supreme Court bench. The court unanimously ruled in favor of Massaro, deciding that a defendant can raise an ineffective assistance of counsel claim for the first time during federal habeas proceedings regardless if they had a prior opportunity to do so on direct appeal. This ruling emphasized that such claims often require evidence outside of what is found in trial records and are therefore better suited for collateral review rather than direct appeal.