United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2416 RAY O. CROWELL, JR., Petitioner-Appellant, v. MARK R. SEVIER, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 1:20-cv-01450-RLY-MJD — Richard L. Young, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MARCH 27, 2023 — DECIDED AUGUST 8, 2023 ____________________

Before HAMILTON, SCUDDER, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Indiana charged petitioner-ap- pellant Crowell with more than a dozen felonies related to the sexual abuse of his daughter. Crowell pled guilty to three charges under a binding plea agreement. He now appeals from the denial of his petition for federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He claims he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. He asserts that his trial counsel failed to advise him that six of the 2 No. 21-2416 charges against him, including one to which he pled guilty, were barred by the statute of limitations. The Indiana Court of Appeals rejected Crowell’s claim because he had not shown that if he had been properly advised, he would have rejected the plea bargain and insisted on going to trial on all the timely charges. We agree with the district court that the state court’s decision was not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, so we affirm denial of relief. I. Factual and Procedural History In 2015, Indiana charged Crowell with thirteen felony counts, including four counts of Class A felony child molest- ing, four counts of Class B felony sexual misconduct with a minor, two counts of Level 5 felony incest, one count of Class C felony incest, one count of Class C felony child molesting, and one count of Class C felony sexual misconduct with a mi- nor. Unbeknownst to Crowell, however, the statute of limita- tions had run on six of the counts: the four counts of Class B felony sexual misconduct with a minor, the one count of Class C felony sexual misconduct with a minor, and the one count of Class C felony child molesting. Crowell’s appointed attor- ney failed to inform him or the prosecution that Crowell had a statute-of-limitations defense to those counts. 1

1 The charged conduct for the time-barred counts was alleged to have occurred no later than 2007. The State’s charges may have relied on the state statute of limitations in effect when Crowell was charged in 2015, as opposed to the statute of limitations in effect in 2007, which required that charges be brought within five years. Because several of the charges against Crowell were already time-barred when the state legislature ex- tended the statute of limitations in 2013, the 2013 enactment could not, consistent with the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, restore the No. 21-2416 3

The State offered a plea deal, which led to friction between Crowell and his attorney. One week before the scheduled trial, Crowell moved to fire his court-appointed lawyer, whom he accused of lying to him about his family’s coopera- tion with the prosecution. Crowell believed his attorney had lied “to sway me to take a plea.” The court refused Crowell’s request but reminded him that whether to plead or go to trial was his choice. Crowell replied that he was “not pleading.” Four days later, however, Crowell signed a plea agree- ment. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of Class A felony child molesting, one count of Class B felony sexual miscon- duct with a minor, and one count of Class C felony incest, wi