I. Appointed appellate counsel's duties to defendant should be defined in light of the limited resources available to the criminal justice system. Rights exist in a world governed by limited resources.
Scarcity is a central fact of the human condition and the starting point for economic analysis.
Legal services, like other goods, are affected by scarcity. The time of lawyers, judges, and court personnel is not unlimited, and society must determine how to allocate this good. This Court's decisions reflect the importance of accommodating rights to limited resources. Habeas is not the only field in which this Court seeks to conserve scarce resources. This Court takes a similarly practical approach to interlocutory appeals.