Opinion ID: 2636537
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Second Ortiz Exception

Text: As stated above, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel informs the second Ortiz exception, which focuses on whether the defendant has been provided counsel. Read literally, the second exception would apply only to those defendants for whom appointed counsel is provided at public expense, i.e., those who are indigent at the point an appeal needs to be taken. Read sensibly, it means the same thing. However, not all of our Ortiz cases appear to have read the exception so narrowly. Compare Phinney, 280 Kan. at 405-06, 122 P.3d 356, with Ortiz, 230 Kan. at 735-36, 640 P.2d 1255, and Brizendine, 210 Kan. at 243, 499 P.2d 525. Indeed, although most cases in this area have involved indigent defendants, see, e.g., Phinney, 280 Kan. 394, 122 P.3d 356; Willingham, 266 Kan. at 98, 967 P.2d 1079; Ortiz, 230 Kan. at 733, 640 P.2d 1255; Brizendine, 210 Kan. 241, 499 P.2d 525; State v. Singleton, 33 Kan.App.2d 478, 104 P.3d 424 (2005); some have not, Bryant v. State, 280 Kan. 2, 118 P.3d 685 (2005); and the difference has been of no significance. We rectify this anomaly now by stating that the second Ortiz exception applies only to defendants who were indigent when they desired to take a timely appeal. A defendant who had appointed counsel at the district court level is entitled to have counsel appointed for the purpose of appeal; either district court counsel may continue representation, or new counsel must be appointed. A defendant who, on the other hand, had the resources to retain counsel at the district court level and had been advised by the court of the right to be appointed counsel will be assumed to have the resources to retain counsel for any desired appeal as well, unless he or she informs the sentencing judge that the situation is otherwise. Ortiz did not create additional constitutional rights, and it did not create a common-law right to appointed appellate counsel for those who can afford to retain a lawyer. If proceedings through sentencing have exhausted a given defendant's resources to retain an attorney to handle an appeal, the defendant must make a timely motion for appointment of counsel for appeal. If the defendant fails to seek such an appointment, then he or she cannot later complain that counsel was not furnished to facilitate timely filing of a notice of appeal under the second Ortiz exception. Further, to pursue a late appeal under the second Ortiz exception, the defendant bears the evidentiary burden of demonstrating that he or she was in need of appointed counsel to pursue an appeal and that no such counsel was appointed, despite a timely request. The defendant must also demonstrate that, had counsel been made available, he or she would have instructed counsel to file the appeal.