Opinion ID: 847535
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: teague exceptions are inapplicable

Text: Having concluded that defendant's conviction was final by the time of Halbert, and that the Halbert rule is new, the final step in the Teague analysis requires a determination whether the rule nonetheless falls within one of the two exceptions outlined in Teague. O'Dell, supra at 156-157 117 S.Ct. 1969. The first exception pertains to new rules `forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct [and] rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense.' Id. at 158, 117 S.Ct. 1969 (citation omitted). There has been no suggestion that this exception applies in the instant case. The second, even more circumscribed, exception, id., permits retroactive application of `watershed rules of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.' Graham v. Collins, 506 U.S. 461, 478, 113 S.Ct. 892, 122 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993) (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized the limited scope of the second Teague exception, explaining that `it is clearly meant to apply only to a small core of rules requiring observance of those procedures that ... are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.' Beard, supra at 417, 124 S.Ct. 2504, quoting O'Dell, supra at 157, 117 S.Ct. 1969, quoting Graham, supra at 478, 113 S.Ct. 892. The Court has observed that because any such rule `would be so central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt [that it is] unlikely that many such components of basic due process have yet to emerge,' it should come as no surprise that we have yet to find a new rule that falls under the second Teague exception. Beard, supra at 417, 124 S.Ct. 2504 (internal citations omitted). In other words, the requirements of this exception present an extremely high barrier  a barrier so high, in fact, that it has never yet been surmounted. With this in mind, we must determine whether the right to appointed counsel to assist in an appeal from a plea-based conviction is a `watershed rule[] of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding' or ``implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'' Graham, supra at 478, 113 S.Ct. 892 (citations omitted). I believe that it is not. Defendant correctly observes that the Supreme Court has referred to the Gideon [5] right to counsel as an example of a rule that would fall into the second Teague exception. However, it is significant that in referring to this example, the Supreme Court observed, In providing guidance as to what might fall within this exception, we have repeatedly referred to the rule of [ Gideon ] (right to counsel), and only to this rule. Beard, supra at 417, 124 S.Ct. 2504 (emphasis added). Yet, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel articulated in Gideon and its progeny has a constitutional basis distinct from that underlying the Douglas line of cases addressing the right to counsel on appeal, which are rooted in the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel at trial is fundamental to the fair and accurate determination of guilt because the trial is the focus of the entire criminal proceeding  the main event, so to speak. [6] Halbert, however, does not speak to the procedure by which guilt is fairly and accurately determined. It does not address itself to the plea proceeding that, like its counterpart, the trial, is the main event of the criminal process. Defendant enjoyed his Sixth Amendment right to counsel at such plea proceeding, including the benefit of elaborate procedures designed to secure his knowing and intelligent waiver of rights incidental to the trial process. See, e.g., MCR 6.302. Rather, Halbert was concerned with a distinct procedure, the criminal appeal, which the state has no obligation to provide at all. See Halbert, supra, 545 U.S. at ___, 125 S.Ct. at 2586, 162 L.Ed.2d at 559-560, citing McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684, 687, 14 S.Ct. 913, 38 L.Ed. 867 (1894). It cannot be said that Halbert announced a rule either `central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt' or `implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.' Beard, supra at 417, 124 S.Ct. 2504 (citations omitted). Indeed, the Supreme Court itself has recognized that appeals are not central to the accurate determination of guilt. In Goeke v. Branch, 514 U.S. 115, 115 S.Ct. 1275, 131 L.Ed.2d 152 (1995), the Supreme Court held that the second exception for nonretroactivity did not apply to a new rule barring the dismissal of an appeal of a recaptured fugitive. The Court held that the new rule was not among the small core of rules requiring observance of those procedures that ... are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Because due process does not require a State to provide appellate process at all, a former fugitive's right to appeal cannot be said to be so central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt, as to fall within this exception.... Id. at 120, 115 S.Ct. 1275 (citations and internal quotations omitted). Here, defendant's guilt was established by his own plea, and the plea hearing, at which defendant was represented by counsel and accorded a broad array of procedural protections, was the main event. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more dispositive process by which guilt can be accurately determined, and in which the appellate process becomes less central to an accurate determination of guilt, than that in which a full admission to criminal conduct has come from the mouth of the defendant himself and in an environment in which the defendant has been accorded every protection against a coerced or mistaken confession. Halbert does not call into question the validity of the procedures employed during the plea and sentencing aspects of defendant's experience with the criminal justice system; rather, Halbert dealt only with the right to appeal. The federal constitution imposes on the states no obligation to provide appellate review of criminal convictions. Because due process does not require a state to provide appellate process at all, the Halbert rule cannot be said to be among the `small core of rules requiring observance of those procedures that ... are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.' Beard, supra at 417, 124 S.Ct. 2504 (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has noted that it has yet to find a new rule that falls under the second Teague exception. Id. For the reasons noted, I do not believe that the rule in Halbert is so exceptional as to constitute the first of such rules.