In the case of Dale Robert Yates v. Parker Evatt, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections et al., 1990, Yates was convicted for murder and sentenced to death in a South Carolina court. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that he had ineffective assistance from counsel during his trial because they failed to object to certain evidence presented by the prosecution. The Supreme Court ruled against Yates' appeal stating that even if there were errors made by his defense team during trial proceedings, it did not necessarily mean that their overall performance was deficient or prejudiced him enough to warrant overturning his conviction. The court held that in order for an appellant's claim of ineffective assistance from counsel to be successful, they must show both incompetence and prejudice resulting from this incompetence - something which Yates failed to do.

In the dissenting opinion for Dale Robert Yates v. Parker Evatt, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections et al., Justice Blackmun argued that the majority's decision was a departure from established precedent regarding habeas corpus petitions. He contended that the Court had previously held that a state prisoner could file such a petition if he or she was in custody under an unconstitutional state judgment at the time of filing. However, with this ruling, they were now requiring prisoners to be both "in custody" and serving an unexpired sentence on their challenged conviction when their federal habeas case is decided - something not required before. This new requirement would unfairly disadvantage prisoners whose appeals process takes longer than their sentence duration by denying them access to federal review entirely based on timing factors often outside their control.