(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2011 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

MARTEL, WARDEN v. CLAIR 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

No. 10–1265. Argued December 6, 2011—Decided March 5, 2012 

Respondent Clair was charged with capital murder for the 1984 slaying

of Linda Rodgers. The main evidence at his trial in California state 

court came from statements Clair made to his former girlfriend in a

conversation that she secretly recorded for the police. He was convicted and sentenced to death, and his verdict was upheld on direct 

review. 

In 1994, Clair commenced federal habeas proceedings by filing a 

request for appointment of counsel, which the District Court granted 

under 18 U. S. C. §3599. That statute entitles indigent capital habeas petitioners like Clair to appointed counsel. It also contemplates

that appointed counsel may be “replaced . . . upon motion of the defendant,” §3599(e), but it does not specify a standard for district

courts to use in evaluating those motions. Clair’s counsel filed his initial habeas petition in 1994, and in the late 1990’s, when two associates from the firm representing Clair moved to the Office of the Federal Public Defender (FPD), the FPD was substituted as counsel of

record. The District Court held an evidentiary hearing on Clair’s habeas petition in August 2004, and the parties submitted their posthearing briefs by February 2005. The court subsequently told the

parties that it did not wish to receive further material about the petition. In March, Clair moved to substitute counsel, claiming that his

attorneys were seeking only to overturn his death sentence, not to 

prove his innocence. After the court asked the parties to address the 

motion, Clair’s counsel informed it that they had met with Clair and

that he wanted the FPD to continue representing him. The court accordingly decided that it would take no action. Six weeks later, however, Clair filed another substitution motion, adding one more charge

to his earlier claims: that his private investigator had discovered that 
 

 

 

 

 

 

2 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Syllabus 

certain physical evidence from the crime scene had never been fully 

tested, but that Clair’s attorneys had done nothing to analyze this evidence or follow up on its discovery. The court denied the renewed 

motion without further inquiry. On the same day, it also denied 

Clair’s habeas petition.

Clair sought review of his substitution motion pro se, and the FPD 

appealed the habeas ruling. The Ninth Circuit asked the FPD to address whether substitution was now warranted, and after the FPD 

informed the court that the attorney-client relationship had broken 

down, the court provided Clair with a new lawyer. Clair then asked 

the District Court to vacate the denial of his habeas petition under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), arguing that he should be allowed to explore the significance of the new physical evidence for his 

case. The District Court rejected his request, and Clair appealed.

Consolidating his appeals, the Ninth Circuit vacated the District 

Court’s denial of both his substitution request and his habeas petition. Holding that the “interests of justice” standard used in noncapital cases, see 18 U. S. C. §3006A, should govern substitution motions like Clair’s, it ruled that the District Court abused its discretion 

by failing to inquire into the complaints in Clair’s second letter. Because Clair had already received new counsel on appeal, the court decided the best remedy was to treat Clair’s new counsel as though he 

had been appointed in June 2005 and to allow him to make whatever

submissions he would have made then, including a motion to amend 

Clair’s habeas petition in light of new evidence. 

Held: 

1. When evaluating motions to substitute counsel in capital cases

under 18 U. S. C. §3599, courts should employ the same “interests of

justice” standard that applies in non-capital cases under §3006A.

Pp. 6–12.

(a) Although §3599 guarantees that indigent capital defendants 

and petitioners seeking federal habeas relief in capital cases will receive the assistance of counsel, see, e.g., §§3599(a)(1), (a)(2), (e), and

contemplates that an appointed attorney may be “replaced by similarly qualified counsel upon the attorney’s own motion or upon motion of the defendant,” §3599(e), the statute fails to specify how a

court should decide such a motion. Clair argues, and the Ninth Circuit agreed, that district courts should use the “in the interests of

justice” standard of §3006A, which governs the appointment and substitution of counsel in federal non-capital litigation. By contrast, the 

State contends that an appointed lawyer can only be replaced when 

the defendant has suffered an “actual or constructive denial” of counsel—that is, when the lawyer lacks the requisite statutory qualifications, has a conflict of interest, or has completely abandoned the 
 

 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 3 

Syllabus 

client. 

The Court adopts Clair’s approach, based on the history of §3599.

Before 1988, §3006A governed both capital and non-capital cases, authorizing courts to appoint counsel for federal habeas petitioners and

providing that in all cases in which a court had appointed counsel,

substitution motions should be decided “in the interests of justice.” 

§3006A(c). Thus, a court in those days would have used that standard to evaluate a request like Clair’s. In 1988, Congress enacted

what is now §3599, thus displacing §3006A for persons facing execution. The new statute grants federal capital defendants and capital

habeas petitioners enhanced rights of representation. Habeas petitioners facing execution now receive counsel as a matter of right, see 

§3599(a)(2), and in multiple ways the statute aims to improve the

quality of their representation: it provides them with more experienced counsel than §3006A demands, authorizes higher rates of compensation, and provides more money for investigative and expert 

services. These measures “reflec[t] a determination that quality legal

representation is necessary” in all capital proceedings to foster “fundamental fairness in the imposition of the death penalty.” McFarland v. Scott, 512 U. S. 849, 855, 859. Given this context, the Court 

cannot conclude that Congress silently prescribed a substitution 

standard that would make it more difficult for those facing capital 

punishment to substitute counsel. Adopting a more stringent test

than §3006A’s would deprive capital defendants of a tool they formerly had, and non-capital defendants still have, to handle serious representational problems. By contrast, utilizing §3006A’s standard

comports with the myriad ways that §3599 seeks to promote effective 

representation for persons facing capital punishment. Pp. 6–9.

(b) The dearth of support for the State’s alternative standard reinforces this conclusion. The State concedes that Congress has not 

considered its standard in any context; neither has a federal court

used it in any case. The Court prefers to use a familiar standard, already known to work, than to try out a new one. Moreover, the 

State’s proposed test would gut §3599’s substitution provision, because even absent that provision courts would have an obligation to 

ensure that the defendant’s statutory right to counsel was satisfied

throughout the litigation. The State counters that only its approach

comports with the rule that habeas petitioners generally have no 

Sixth Amendment right to counsel. But Congress declined to track

that Amendment in providing statutory rights to counsel in both

§3006A and §3599. Thus, the scope of the Amendment cannot answer the statutory question presented here. The State also contends 

that the “interests of justice” standard will permit substitution motions to become a mechanism to defer enforcement of a death sen-
 

 

 

 

4 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Syllabus 

tence. But the “interests of justice” standard takes into account

whether a substitution motion will cause undue delay. Pp. 9–12.

2. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Clair’s 

second request for new counsel under §3599’s “interests of justice”

standard. In reviewing substitution motions, the courts of appeals

have pointed to several relevant considerations, including: the timeliness of the motion; the adequacy of the district court’s inquiry into

the defendant’s complaint; and the asserted cause for that complaint,

including the extent of the conflict or breakdown in communication

between lawyer and client. Because a trial court’s decision on substitution is so fact-specific, it deserves deference and may be overturned 

only for an abuse of discretion.

Here, the District Court received Clair’s second substitution motion 

on the eve of deciding his 10-year-old habeas petition. Just three 

months earlier, Clair had written the court to complain about his attorneys. After making proper inquiry, the court learned that Clair

and his counsel had settled their dispute and turned once more to

ruling on Clair’s habeas petition, only to receive a second letter six

weeks later. In it Clair maintained his general assertion that his

lawyers were not trying to prove his innocence, but he also alleged a 

new and significant charge of attorney error: that counsel had refused to investigate particular, newly located physical evidence. 

Such a charge normally would require the court to make further inquiry; a district court cannot usually rule on a substitution motion

without exploring why a defendant wants new counsel. But here, the 

motion’s timing precludes a holding that the District Court abused its

discretion. The court received the letter while putting the finishing

touches on its denial of Clair’s habeas petition. After years of litigation, an evidentiary hearing, and post-hearing briefing, the court had 

instructed the parties that it would accept no further submissions.

All proceedings had therefore come to a close, and a new attorney

could have done nothing further in the District Court. In those circumstances, the District Court acted within its discretion in denying

Clair’s substitution motion. Pp. 13–16. 

403 Fed. Appx. 276, reversed and remanded. 

KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. 
 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 10–1265 

MICHAEL MARTEL, WARDEN, PETITIONER v.
 

KENNETH CLAIR
 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
 

[March 5, 2012] 

JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. 

A federal statute, §3599 of Title 18, entitles indigent

defendants to the appointment of counsel in capital cases,

including habeas corpus proceedings. The statute contemplates that appointed counsel may be “replaced . . . 

upon motion of the defendant,” §3599(e), but it does not 

specify the standard that district courts should use in 

evaluating those motions. We hold that courts should 

employ the same “interests of justice” standard that they

apply in non-capital cases under a related statute, §3006A 

of Title 18. We also hold that the District Court here did 

not abuse its discretion in denying respondent Kenneth

Clair’s motion to change counsel. 

I 

This case arises from the murder of Linda Rodgers in 

1984. Rodgers resided at the home of Kai Henriksen and 

Margaret Hessling in Santa Ana, California. Clair was a 

squatter in a vacant house next door. About a week prior

to the murder, police officers arrested Clair for burglarizing the Henriksen-Hessling home, relying on information 

Henriksen had provided. On the night the police released 
 

 

2 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

Clair from custody, Hessling returned from an evening out 

to find Rodgers’ dead body in the master bedroom, naked 

from the waist down and beaten, stabbed, and strangled.

Some jewelry and household items were missing from the

house. See People v. Clair, 2 Cal. 4th 629, 644–647, 828 

P. 2d 705, 713–714 (1992); App. to Pet. for Cert. 23–24. 

The district attorney charged Clair with Rodgers’ murder and sought the death penalty. No forensic evidence 

linked Clair to the crime; instead, the main evidence 

against Clair came from his former girlfriend, Pauline 

Flores. Although she later recanted her testimony, see

App. 36–42, Flores stated at trial that she and Clair were

walking in the neighborhood on the night of the murder 

and split up near the Henriksen-Hessling house. When 

they reunited about an hour later, Flores recounted, Clair 

was carrying jewelry and other items and had blood on his

right hand. According to Flores, Clair explained to her

that he had “just finished beating up a woman.” Clair, 2 

Cal. 4th, at 647, 828 P. 2d, at 714. The prosecution then 

introduced a tape recording of a talk between Flores and

Clair several months after the murder, which Flores had 

made in cooperation with the police. On that tape, Clair 

at one point denied committing the murder, but also made 

several inculpatory statements. For example, when Flores 

told Clair that she had seen blood on him, he replied “Ain’t 

on me no more” and “They can’t prove nothing.” App. to

Pet. for Cert. 53 (internal quotation marks omitted). And 

in response to her continued probing, Clair explained 

“[W]hat you fail to realize, how . . . they gonna prove I was 

there . . . ? There ain’t no . . . fingerprints, ain’t no . . . 

body seen me go in there and leave out there.” Id., at 53– 

54 (internal quotation marks omitted). The jury convicted 

Clair and sentenced him to death. The California Supreme Court upheld the verdict, and this Court denied 

review, Clair v. California, 506 U. S. 1063 (1993). 

Clair commenced federal habeas proceedings by filing a 
 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

request for appointment of counsel, which the District

Court granted under §3599. Clair and his counsel filed an 

initial petition for habeas relief in 1994 and, after exhausting state remedies, an amended petition the following 

year. The petition alleged more than 40 claims, involving

such matters as jury selection and composition, sufficiency

of the evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, nondisclosure

of exculpatory materials relating to state witnesses, and 

ineffectiveness of trial counsel. In the late 1990’s, two 

associates from the firm representing Clair took jobs at 

the Office of the Federal Public Defender (FPD), and the

court substituted that office as counsel of record. The 

court held an evidentiary hearing on Clair’s habeas petition in August 2004, and the parties submitted posthearing briefs by February 2005. The court subsequently 

informed the parties that it viewed the briefing “to be

complete and d[id] not wish to receive any additional 

material” about the petition. App. 3–4.

On March 16, 2005, Clair sent a letter to the court 

stating that the FPD attorneys “no longer . . . ha[d] [his] 

best interest at hand” and that he did not want them to 

continue to represent him. Id., at 24; see id., at 18–25. 

Clair alleged that the lawyers had repeatedly dismissed

his efforts to participate in his own defense. Prior to the 

evidentiary hearing, Clair wrote, he had become so frustrated with the attorneys that he enlisted a private detective to look into his case. But the lawyers, Clair charged,

refused to cooperate with the investigator; they were 

seeking only to overturn his death sentence, rather than to

prove his innocence. As a result, Clair felt that he and his 

counsel were not “on the same team.” Id., at 23. 

The District Court responded by asking both parties to

address Clair’s motion to substitute counsel. See id., at 

18. The State noted that “[w]hat the trial court does with

respect to appointing counsel is within its discretion, 

providing the interests of justice are served.” Id., at 29. 
 

 

 

4 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

The State further advised the court that “nothing in 

[Clair’s] letter require[d] a change” of counsel because the

FPD lawyers had provided appropriate representation and 

substitution would delay the case. Ibid. Clair replied to

the court’s request through his FPD attorneys on April 26,

2005. Their letter stated: “After meeting with Mr. Clair,

counsel understands that Mr. Clair wants the [FPD] to

continue to serve as his counsel in this case at this time.” 

Id., at 27. On the basis of that representation, the court

determined that it would “take no further action on the 

matter at this time.” Id., at 33. 

But the issue resurfaced just six weeks after the court’s 

decision. On June 16, 2005, Clair wrote a second letter to 

the court asking for substitution of counsel. That letter 

again asserted a “total break down of communication”

between Clair and the FPD; according to Clair, he was “no

longer able to trust anybody within that office.” Id., at 62– 

63. In explaining the source of the problem, Clair reiterated each of the points made in his prior complaint. And 

then he added one more. Clair recounted that his private

investigator had recently learned that the police and district attorney’s office were in possession of fingerprints

and other physical evidence from the crime scene that had 

never been fully tested. The FPD lawyers, Clair asserted,

were doing nothing to analyze this evidence or otherwise

follow up on its discovery. Clair attributed this failure, 

too, to the FPD’s decision to focus on his sentence, rather 

than on questions of guilt. 

Two weeks later, the District Court denied Clair’s renewed request for substitution without further inquiry. 

The court stated: “It does not appear to the Court that a

change of counsel is appropriate. It appears that [Clair’s] 

counsel is doing a proper job. No conflict of interest or 

inadequacy of counsel is shown.” Id., at 61. On the same 

day, the court denied Clair’s habeas petition in a detailed 

opinion. Clair v. Brown, Case No. CV 93–1133 GLT (CD 
 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

Cal., June 30, 2005), App. to Pet. for Cert. 20–91. 

Clair sought review of his substitution motion pro se, 

while the FPD filed a notice of appeal from the denial of

his habeas petition. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth

Circuit instructed the FPD to address whether substitution of counsel was now warranted, and in October 2005, 

the FPD informed the court that “the attorney-client 

relationship ha[d] broken down to such an extent that substitution of counsel [would be] appropriate.” Attorney

for Appellant’s Response to Court’s Sept. 15, 2005 Order, 

in No. 05–99005 (CA9), Record, Doc. 9, p. 1. The State did 

not comment or object, and the Court of Appeals provided 

Clair with a new lawyer going forward. Clair then asked 

the District Court to vacate the denial of his habeas petition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), arguing 

that he should be allowed to explore the significance of 

the new physical evidence for his case. The District Court 

(with a new judge assigned, because the judge previously

handling the case had retired) rejected that request on the 

ground that the new evidence did not pertain to any of the

claims presented in Clair’s habeas petition. See App. to

Pet. for Cert. 9–10. Clair appealed that decision as well.1 

After consolidating Clair’s appeals, the Ninth Circuit

vacated the trial court’s denial of both Clair’s request for 

new counsel and his habeas petition. See Clair v. Ayers, 

403 Fed. Appx. 276 (2010). The Court of Appeals’ opinion 

focused on Clair’s substitution motion. Holding that the

“interests of justice” standard should apply to that motion, 

—————— 

1While litigating his Rule 60(b) motion in the District Court, Clair 

also pursued discovery in the California state courts relating to the

newly found physical evidence. On the basis of material he obtained, 

Clair filed another petition for state habeas relief, alleging (among

other claims) actual innocence and improper suppression of exculpatory 

material under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). The California 

Supreme Court summarily denied that petition. See In re Clair, No. 

S169188 (Aug. 24, 2011). 
 

6 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

the Ninth Circuit ruled that the District Court abused its 

discretion by failing to inquire into the complaints in 

Clair’s second letter. See id., at 278. The Court of Appeals then considered how to remedy that error, given that

Clair had received new counsel while on appeal. It decided that “the most reasonable solution” was to “treat Clair’s 

current counsel as if he were the counsel who might have

been appointed” in June 2005, and to allow him to make

whatever submissions he would have made then, including a motion to amend Clair’s habeas petition in light of 

new evidence. Id., at 279. 

We granted certiorari to review this judgment, 564 U. S.

__ (2011), and now reverse. 

II 

We first consider the standard that district courts 

should use to adjudicate federal habeas petitioners’ motions to substitute counsel in capital cases. The question

arises because the relevant statute, 18 U. S. C. §3599,

contains a notable gap. Section 3599 first guarantees that

indigent defendants in federal capital cases will receive 

the assistance of counsel, from pretrial proceedings

through stay applications. See §§3599(a)(1), (a)(2), (e). It 

next grants a corresponding right to people like Clair who 

seek federal habeas relief from a state death sentence, for 

all post-conviction proceedings and related activities. See 

§§3599(a)(2), (e); McFarland v. Scott, 512 U. S. 849, 854– 

855 (1994); Harbison v. Bell, 556 U. S. 180, 183–185 

(2009). And the statute contemplates that both sets of 

litigants may sometimes substitute counsel; it notes that

an attorney appointed under the section may be “replaced 

by similarly qualified counsel upon the attorney’s own

motion or upon motion of the defendant.” §3599(e).2 But 

—————— 

2Section 3599(e) provides in full: 

“Unless replaced by similarly qualified counsel upon the attorney’s 

own motion or upon motion of the defendant, each attorney so appoint-
 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

here lies the rub: The statute fails to specify how a court 

should decide such a motion. Section 3599 says not a word

about the standard a court should apply when addressing 

a request for a new lawyer.

The parties offer us two alternative ways to fill this

statutory hole. Clair argues, and the Ninth Circuit

agreed, that district courts should decide substitution 

motions brought under §3599 “in the interests of justice.” 

That standard derives from 18 U. S. C. §3006A, which 

governs the appointment and substitution of counsel in

federal non-capital litigation. By contrast, the State contends that district courts may replace an appointed lawyer

under §3599 only when the defendant has suffered an

“actual or constructive denial” of counsel. Brief for Petitioner 33. That denial occurs, the State asserts, in just

three situations: when the lawyer lacks the qualifications

necessary for appointment under the statute; when he has

a “disabling conflict of interest”; or when he has “completely abandoned” the client. Id., at 34. On this matter, we 

think Clair, not the State, gets it right.

A trip back in time begins to show why. Prior to 1988, 

§3006A governed the appointment of counsel in all federal 

criminal cases and habeas litigation, regardless whether 

the matter involved a capital or a non-capital offense.

That section provided counsel as a matter of right to most

indigent criminal defendants, from pre-trial proceedings 

through appeal. See §§3006A(a)(1), (c) (1982 ed.). In 

—————— 

ed shall represent the defendant throughout every subsequent stage of

available judicial proceedings, including pretrial proceedings, trial, 

sentencing, motions for new trial, appeals, applications for writ of

certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, and all available 

post-conviction process, together with applications for stays of execution and other appropriate motions and procedures, and shall also

represent the defendant in such competency proceedings and proceedings for executive or other clemency as may be available to the

defendant.” 
 

 

8 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

addition, the statute authorized courts to appoint counsel 

for federal habeas petitioners when “the interests of 

justice so require[d],” §3006A(g); and under that provision, courts almost always appointed counsel to represent

petitioners convicted of capital offenses, see Ruthenbeck,

Dueling with Death in Federal Courts, 4 ABA Criminal 

Justice, No. 3, pp. 2, 42 (Fall, 1989). In all cases in which 

a court had appointed counsel, §3006A further provided 

(as it continues to do) that substitution motions should be 

decided “in the interests of justice.” §3006A(c). So in 

those days, a court would have used that standard to 

evaluate a request like Clair’s. 

In 1988, Congress enacted the legislation now known as

§3599 to govern appointment of counsel in capital cases,

thus displacing §3006A for persons facing execution (but

retaining that section for all others). See Anti-Drug Abuse

Act, 102 Stat. 4393–4394, 21 U. S. C. §§848(q)(4)–(10) 

(1988 ed.) (recodified at 18 U. S. C. §3599 (2006 ed. and 

Supp. IV)). The new statute grants federal capital defendants and capital habeas petitioners enhanced rights of 

representation, in light of what it calls “the seriousness

of the possible penalty and . . . the unique and complex 

nature of the litigation.” §3599(d) (2006 ed.). Habeas 

petitioners facing execution now receive counsel as a 

matter of right, not an exercise of the court’s discretion.

See §3599(a)(2). And the statute aims in multiple ways to

improve the quality of representation afforded to capital

petitioners and defendants alike. Section 3599 requires

lawyers in capital cases to have more legal experience 

than §3006A demands. Compare §§3599(b)–(d) with 

§3006A(b). Similarly, §3599 authorizes higher rates of

compensation, in part to attract better counsel. Compare

§3599(g)(1) with §3006A(d) (2006 ed. and Supp. IV). And 

§3599 provides more money for investigative and expert 

services. Compare §§3599(f) (2006 ed.), (g)(2) (2006 ed.,

Supp. IV), with §3006A(e) (2006 ed. and Supp. IV). As we 
 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

have previously noted, those measures “reflec[t] a determination that quality legal representation is necessary” in

all capital proceedings to foster “fundamental fairness

in the imposition of the death penalty.” McFarland, 512 

U. S., at 855, 859. 

That understanding of §3599’s terms and origins goes

far toward resolving the parties’ dispute over what standard should apply. We know that before §3599’s passage,

courts used an “interests of justice” standard to decide

substitution motions in all cases—and that today, they 

continue to do so in all non-capital proceedings. We know,

too, that in spinning off §3599, Congress enacted a set of 

reforms to improve the quality of lawyering in capital

litigation. With all those measures pointing in one direction, we cannot conclude that Congress silently prescribed

a substitution standard that would head the opposite way.

Adopting a more stringent test than §3006A’s would deprive capital defendants of a tool they formerly had, and 

defendants facing lesser penalties still have, to handle

serious representational problems. That result clashes 

with everything else §3599 does. By contrast, utilizing 

§3006A’s standard comports with the myriad ways that 

§3599 seeks to promote effective representation for persons threatened with capital punishment.

The dearth of support for the State’s alternative standard reinforces the case for borrowing from §3006A. Recall 

that the State thinks substitution proper “only when . . . 

counsel is completely denied”—which, the State says,

occurs when counsel lacks the requisite experience; “actively represents conflicting interests”; or has “total[ly]

desert[ed]” the client. Brief for Petitioner 15, 35, 38. As 

the State acknowledges, this test comes from . . . well, 

from nowhere. The State conceded during argument that

Congress has not considered (much less adopted) the 

standard in any context; neither has a federal court used

it in any case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 16. Indeed, the stand-
 

10 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

ard is new to the State’s own attorneys. As noted earlier, 

when Clair first requested a change of counsel, the State 

responded that substitution is a “matter . . . of trial court

discretion,” based on “the interests of justice.” App. 29; 

see supra, at 3–4. Only later did the State devise its 

present proposal. Inventiveness is often an admirable 

quality, but here we think the State overdoes it. To be 

sure, we must infer a substitution standard for §3599; in

that sense, we are writing on a blank slate. But in undertaking that task, we prefer to copy something familiar 

than concoct something novel. That enables courts to rely 

on experience and precedent, with a standard already

known to work effectively. 

Still worse, the State’s proposed test guts §3599’s provision for substitution motions. See §3599(e) (2006 ed.) 

(appointed counsel may be “replaced . . . upon motion of

the defendant”). According to the State, a court may not 

change counsel under §3599 even if the attorney-client

relationship has broken down, so long as the lawyer has 

the required qualifications and is “act[ing] as an advocate.” Brief for Petitioner 35. And that is so, continues 

the State, even when substitution will not cause delay or 

other prejudice—because again, the defendant retains a

functioning lawyer. See id., at 34. That approach, as

already noted, undermines Congress’s efforts in §3599 to 

enhance representation in capital cases. See supra, at 8– 

9. And beyond that, it renders §3599’s substitution provision superfluous. Even in the absence of that provision, a 

court would have to ensure that the defendant’s statutory 

right to counsel was satisfied throughout the litigation; for 

example, the court would have to appoint new counsel if

the first lawyer developed a conflict with or abandoned the

client. So by confining substitution to cases in which the 

defendant has no counsel at all, the State’s proposal effectively deletes §3599’s substitution clause. 

The State counters that only its approach comports with 
 

 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

“this Court’s long-established jurisprudence that habeas

prisoners, including capital prisoners,” have no right to

counsel under the Sixth Amendment. Brief for Petitioner 

18; see Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U. S. 1, 10, 12 (1989) 

(plurality opinion); id., at 14–15 (KENNEDY, J., concurring 

in judgment); cf. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 755 

(1991) (reserving question of whether the Sixth Amendment guarantees counsel when a habeas proceeding provides the first opportunity to raise a claim). But we do not 

understand the State’s basis for linking use of the “interests of justice” standard to cases in which an individual

has a Sixth Amendment right. A statute need not draw 

the same lines as the Constitution, and neither §3006A 

nor §3599 does so in addressing the substitution of 

counsel. Section 3006A applies the “interests of justice”

standard to substitution motions even when the Sixth 

Amendment does not require representation; that is

presumptively so, for example, when a court provides

counsel to a non-capital habeas petitioner. See 

§§3006A(a)(2)(B), (c). And whatever standard we adopt for 

§3599 will likewise apply both to litigants who have and to

litigants who lack a Sixth Amendment right, because the

section offers counsel on the same terms to capital defendants and habeas petitioners. In providing statutory rights

to counsel, Congress declined to track the Sixth Amendment; accordingly, the scope of that Amendment cannot 

answer the statutory question presented here. 

The State’s stronger argument relates to delay in capital

proceedings. Under the “interests of justice” standard, the 

State contends, substitution motions will become a mechanism to defer enforcement of a death sentence, contrary 

to historic restrictions on “abuse of the writ” and to the 

goals of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act

of 1996 (AEDPA). See Brief for Petitioner 19–22. But this 

argument, like the last, forgets that §3599 reaches not just

habeas petitioners but also criminal defendants, who have 
 

12 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

not been convicted or sentenced and therefore have no 

incentive to delay. Moreover, the State’s claim misjudges

the capacity of the “interests of justice” standard to deal

with such issues. Protecting against abusive delay is an 

interest of justice. Because that is so, courts addressing

substitution motions in both capital and non-capital cases 

routinely consider issues of timeliness. See, e.g., Hunter v. 

Delo, 62 F. 3d 271, 274 (CA8 1995) (citing “the need to 

thwart abusive delay” in affirming the denial of a habeas 

petitioner’s substitution motion); United States v. White, 

451 F. 2d 1225, 1226 (CA6 1971) (per curiam) (approving a

District Court’s refusal to change counsel under §3006A(c) 

“on the morning of the trial”). Indeed, we will do so, just

paragraphs from here, in this very case. See infra, at 15– 

16. The standard we adopt thus takes account of, rather

than ignores or opposes, the State’s interest in avoiding

undue delay.3 

—————— 

3The State also makes a more specific argument based on AEDPA, 

see Brief for Petitioner 26–29, but we think it is not well taken. The 

State notes that the “interests of justice” standard enables a court, 

when ruling on a substitution motion, to take account of a lawyer’s 

effectiveness. That consideration, according to the State, conflicts

with AEDPA’s injunction that “[t]he ineffectiveness or incompetence of 

counsel during Federal or State collateral post-conviction proceedings 

shall not be a ground for relief in a [habeas] proceeding arising under 

section 2254.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(i); see §2261(e) (using similar language). But most naturally read, §2254(i) prohibits a court from 

granting substantive habeas relief on the basis of a lawyer’s ineffectiveness in post-conviction proceedings, not from substituting counsel 

on that ground. Cf. Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip

op., at 18) (holding that §2254(i) does not preclude equitable tolling of a 

statute of limitations based on attorney misconduct in habeas proceedings). Indeed, if the State were right, we would also have to find that

AEDPA silently repealed §3006A’s instruction to courts to apply the

“interests of justice” standard in non-capital habeas cases. We see 

nothing to suggest that Congress had that result in mind. 
Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

III 

The remaining question is whether the District Court

abused its discretion in denying Clair’s second request for 

new counsel under §3599’s “interests of justice” standard. 

We do not think the court did so, although the court’s 

failure to make any inquiry into Clair’s allegations makes 

this decision harder than necessary. 

As its name betrays, the “interests of justice” standard

contemplates a peculiarly context-specific inquiry. So we 

doubt that any attempt to provide a general definition of 

the standard would prove helpful. In reviewing substitution motions, the courts of appeals have pointed to several 

relevant considerations. Those factors may vary a bit from

circuit to circuit, but generally include: the timeliness of 

the motion; the adequacy of the district court’s inquiry 

into the defendant’s complaint; and the asserted cause for

that complaint, including the extent of the conflict or

breakdown in communication between lawyer and client 

(and the client’s own responsibility, if any, for that conflict). See, e.g., United States v. Prime, 431 F. 3d 1147, 

1154 (CA9 2005); United States v. Doe, 272 F. 3d 116, 122– 

123 (CA2 2001); Hunter, 62 F. 3d, at 274; United States v. 

Welty, 674 F. 2d 185, 188 (CA3 1982). Because a trial 

court’s decision on substitution is so fact-specific, it deserves deference; a reviewing court may overturn it only

for an abuse of discretion. 

The District Court here received Clair’s second substitution motion on the eve of deciding his 10-year-old habeas

petition. Recall that three months earlier, following an 

evidentiary hearing and post-hearing briefing, Clair had 

written the court to complain about his attorneys. In that 

first letter, Clair accused his lawyers of refusing to cooperate with a private detective and, more generally, of 

forgoing efforts to prove his innocence. After making

proper inquiry, the court learned that Clair and his attorneys had worked through their dispute and Clair no long-
 

 

14 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

er wanted to substitute counsel. The court thus turned its 

attention once again to ruling on Clair’s habeas petition—

only to receive another letter requesting a change in

representation.

If that second letter had merely recapitulated the

charges in the first, this case would be relatively simple. 

Even then, the court might have done well to make further

inquiry of Clair and his counsel. As all Circuits agree, 

courts cannot properly resolve substitution motions without probing why a defendant wants a new lawyer. See, 

e.g., United States v. Iles, 906 F. 2d 1122, 1130 (CA6 1990) 

(“It is hornbook law that ‘[w]hen an indigent defendant 

makes a timely and good faith motion requesting that

appointed counsel be discharged and new counsel appointed, the trial court clearly has a responsibility to determine 

the reasons for defendant’s dissatisfaction . . .’” (quoting 2

W. LaFave & J. Israel, Criminal Procedure §11.4, p. 36 

(1984))). Moreover, an on-the-record inquiry into the 

defendant’s allegations “permit[s] meaningful appellate 

review” of a trial court’s exercise of discretion. United 

States v. Taylor, 487 U. S. 326, 336–337 (1988). But here 

the court had inquired, just a short time earlier, into

Clair’s relationship with his lawyers. The court knew that 

Clair had responded to that inquiry by dropping his initial 

complaints. And the court had reason to think, based on 

10 years of handling the case, that those charges lacked

merit: Perhaps most important, the court knew that the 

lawyers had raised many challenges not just to Clair’s

sentence, but to his conviction, including to the sufficiency

of the State’s evidence. See, e.g., App. to Pet. for Cert. 27– 

69. Especially at this stage of the litigation, those factors 

would have provided ample basis to reject a simple reprise 

of Clair’s allegations.

What complicates this case is that in his second letter,

Clair added a new and significant charge of attorney error.

Beyond asserting generally that his lawyers were not 
 

 

Cite as: 565 U. S. ____ (2012) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

trying to prove his innocence, Clair now alleged that counsel had refused to investigate particular, newly located

physical evidence. That evidence, according to Clair, 

might have shown that the police had suppressed Brady 

material, that his trial counsel had been ineffective in 

investigating the murder, or that he had not committed 

the offense. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 45–46. Especially in a 

case lacking physical evidence, built in part on sincerecanted witness testimony, those possibilities cannot be

blithely dismissed. In the mine run of circumstances, 

Clair’s new charge would have required the court to make

further inquiry before ruling on his motion for a new 

attorney.

But here, the timing of that motion precludes a holding

that the District Court abused its discretion. The court 

received Clair’s second letter while putting the finishing

touches on its denial of his habeas petition. (That lengthy

decision issued just two weeks later.) After many years

of litigation, an evidentiary hearing, and substantial posthearing briefing, the court had instructed the parties that

it would accept no further submissions. See App. 3–4; Tr. 

of Oral Arg. 4–5. The case was all over but the deciding; 

counsel, whether old or new, could do nothing more in the 

trial court proceedings. At that point and in that forum,

Clair’s conflict with his lawyers no longer mattered. 

Clair, to be sure, wanted to press his case further in the

District Court. He desired a new lawyer, after examining 

the physical evidence, to make whatever claims followed

from it. But, notably, all of those claims would have been 

new; as the District Court later found in ruling on Clair’s

Rule 60(b) motion, the physical evidence did not relate to 

any of the claims Clair had previously made in his habeas 

petition. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 9–10. A substitute 

lawyer thus would have had to seek an amendment of that 

petition, as well as an evidentiary hearing or, more likely,

a stay to allow exhaustion of remedies in state court. See 
 

16 MARTEL v. CLAIR 

Opinion of the Court 

403 Fed. Appx., at 279. The District Court could properly 

have rejected that motion, consistent with its order precluding further submissions (effectively remitting Clair to 

state court to pursue the matter). See Mayle v. Felix, 545 

U. S. 644, 663 (2005). And if that is so, the court also 

acted within its discretion in denying Clair’s request to 

substitute counsel, even without the usually appropriate

inquiry. The court was not required to appoint a new

lawyer just so Clair could file a futile motion. We accordingly find that the Court of Appeals erred in overturning

the District Court’s decision.4 

The judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. 

It is so ordered. 

—————— 

4We note as well that the Court of Appeals ordered the wrong remedy 

even assuming the District Court had abused its discretion in denying

Clair’s substitution motion without inquiry. The way to cure that error

would have been to remand to the District Court to decide whether 

substitution was appropriate at the time of Clair’s letter. Unless that 

court determined that counsel should have been changed, the Court of

Appeals had no basis for vacating the denial of Clair’s habeas petition.