Task: sc_decisiondirection

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.

Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case, which was argued following Anders v. California, ante, p. 738, presents a similar problem in that we are here also concerned with the constitutional requirements which are binding on a State in the administration of its appellate criminal procedures with respect to convicted indigents - seeking initial review of their convictions. Petitioner, who was represented at trial by a court-appointed attorney, was convicted of uttering a forged instrument in violation of Iowa law. Shortly after the verdict was rendered, he requested the trial court to appoint different counsel to aid him in the preparation of a motion for new trial. Counsel was appointed, the motion was prepared and filed but the trial court overruled it. Upon petitioner’s application, the same attorney was appointed to represent him on appeal; counsel then prepared and filed a timely notice of appeal.
Iowa law provides alternate methods of appealing criminal convictions, the first method being an appeal on a “clerk’s transcript” which follows the notice of appeal as a matter of course. Under this procedure, the clerk of the trial court prepares and files a modified transcript of the proceedings below; such transcript contains only the Information or Indictment, the Grand Jury Minutes, the Bailiff’s Oath, Statement and Instructions, various, orders and judgment entries of the court, but does not contain the transcript of evidence nor the briefs and argument of counsel. This, practice is used in the absence of a request on the part of counsel for a plenary review-of the case. If such a request is made, the appellant is provided an appeal on a complete record of the trial, including not only those items included in the clerk’s transcript but in addition thereto, the briefs and argument of counsel.
Petitioner asked his appointed attorney to perfect a plenary .appeal and counsel gave notice therefor which, though belatedly filed, was allowed by the Iowa Supreme Court. However, counsel, apparently believing that the appeal was without merit, failed to file the entire record of petitioner’s trial although it had. been prepared by-the State and counsel had advised petitioner that he would file same. It is of note that counsel nevér moved the court for leave to withdraw from'-the case. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court had ordered the case submitted on the full record, briefs and arguments of counsel — and the record here fails to reveal any rescission of that order — the court took petitioner’s case into consideration on the clerk’s transcript alone as it was required to do under Iowa law. The conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Iowa, State v. Entsminger, 137 N. W. 2d 381 (1965). This was done despite the request of the petitioner a few days before the affirmance of his conviction, that the court issue an order commanding the trial court to “transmit the certified records” to the Supreme Court for its review. We granted certiorari, 384 U. S. 1000.
The Attorney General of Iowa in the utmost candor and with most commendable fairness concedes that petitioner has not received “adequate appellate review” and is entitled to an appeal free of constitutional doubt. We have examined the record carefully and agree that the clerk’s transcript procedure as applied, here “can hardly be labeled adequate and effective review of the merits of the proceedings culminating in a conviction.” He bases his conclusions in this regard upon the holding of the Iowa Supreme Court in Weaver v. Herrick, 258 Iowa 796, 140 N. W. 2d 178 (1966), where the court specifically stated:
“To afford an indigent defendant an adequate appeal from his conviction, the furnishing of a transcript, printed record and necessary briefs is required.” At 801-802, 140 N. W. 2d, at 181.
As we have held again and again, an indigent defendant is entitled to the appointment of counsel to assist him on his first appeal, Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963), and appointed counsel must function in the active role of an advocate, as opposed to that of amicus curiae, Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674 (1958). In Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), the Court held that a State that provided transcripts on appeal only to those who could afford them was constitutionally required to provide a “means of affording adequate and effective appellate review to indigent defendants.” At 20. Again in Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252 (1959), the Court, in reaffirming the Griffin rule, held that “once the State chooses to establish appellate review in criminal cases, it may not foreclose indigents from access to any phase of that procedure because of their poverty.” At 257. In Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708 (1961), the Court, once again considering the question, held that such principles are not limited to direct appeals but are also applicable to post-conviction proceedings. In that case the Court held that “the Fourteenth Amendment weighs the interests of rich and poor criminals in equal scale, and its hand extends as far to each.” At 714. Here there is no question but that petitioner was precluded from obtaining a complete and effective appellate review of his conviction by the operation of the clerk’s transcript procedure as embodied in Iowa law. Such procedure automatically deprived him of a full record, briefs, and arguments on the bare election of his appointed counsel, without providing,any notice to him or to the reviewing court that he had chosen not to file the complete record in the case. By such action “all hope of any [adequate and effective] appeal at all,” Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477, 485 (1963), was taken from the petitioner.
Since petitioner admittedly has not received the benefit of a first appeal with a full printed abstract of the record, briefs, and oral argument, as was his right under Iowa law, we do not reach the merits of his conviction here. We have discussed at some length the responsibility of both the appellate court and appointed counsel representing indigents on appeal in Anders v. California, supra, decided this day, and we need not repeat such here. The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice, Stewart, with whom Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Harlan join, concurs in the judgment and in the Court’s opinion, except as it refers to Anders v. California, a case which ' he thinks involves quite different issues.
Iowa Code §793.6 (1962).
Rules of the Supreme Court, Rule 16, Iowa Code, Vol. II, p. 2716 (1962).
Id., Rule 15.
Indeed the Attorney General has moved the Supreme Court of Iowa to change its rule with respect to the clerk’s transcript system and his suggested changes and the responsibility of appointed counsel thereunder are now under advisement. We do not pass on the validity of the suggested procedure.

Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspeciﬁable
Answer:

Answer: B