Opinion ID: 1231526
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Iowa Code section 663A.5 provides in pertinent part:

Text: If the applicant is unable to pay court costs and expenses of representation, including stenographic, printing, and legal services, these costs and expenses shall be made available to the applicant in the preparation of the application, in the trial court, and on review. We have interpreted this provision to mean that appointment of counsel for a postconviction relief applicant rests in the sound discretion of the district court. Furgison v. State, 217 N.W.2d 613, 615 (Iowa 1974). Although we have held that counsel need not always be appointed under section 663A.5, we have pointed out that trial judges would ordinarily be well advised to appoint counsel for most indigent postconviction [relief] applicants. Id. We said so because we thought appointment of counsel benefits the applicant, aids the trial court, is conducive to a fair hearing, and is certainly helpful in event of appeal. Id. We also said that in determining whether counsel should be appointed, trial judges should inceptionally read the often inartfully drawn application in a light most favorable to the applicant. In event it thus appears a substantial issue of law or fact may exist, then counsel should be at once appointed. Id. at 615-16. Recently, we held that a postconviction relief applicant has no federal sixth amendment right to counsel at a disciplinary hearing or in a proceeding to challenge the results of such a hearing. Williams v. State, 421 N.W.2d 890, 892 (Iowa 1988). This holding rests on the recognition that the sixth amendment right to counsel attaches only at the initiation of criminal prosecutions; prison disciplinary proceedings and judicial review of them are not criminal prosecutions. Id.; See also Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d 935, 951 (1974) (prison disciplinary actions are not criminal prosecutions); Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 315, 96 S.Ct. 1551, 1556-57, 47 L.Ed.2d 810, 819 (1976) (prison inmates have no due process right to counsel in disciplinary hearings). Judicial review of prison disciplinary proceedings is provided for in our postconviction statute. See Iowa Code § 663A.2(5), (6); Davis v. State, 345 N.W.2d 97, 98-99 (Iowa 1984) (postconviction relief is available to one challenging prison disciplinary proceedings). The sixth amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant assistance of counsel for his defense. U.S. Const. amend. VI. Implicit in the words assistance of counsel is the notion that a criminal defendant has the right to self-representationto make one's own defense personally.... The right to defend is given directly to the accused; for it is he who suffers the consequences if the defense fails. The counsel provision supplements this design. It speaks of the assistance of counsel, and an assistant, however expert, is still an assistant. The language and spirit of the Sixth Amendment contemplate that counsel, like the other defense tools guaranteed by the Amendment, shall be an aid to a willing defendant not an organ of the State interposed between an unwilling defendant and his right to defend himself personally. To thrust counsel upon the accused, against his considered wish, thus violates the logic of the Amendment. In such a case, counsel is not an assistant, but a master; and the right to make a defense is stripped of the personal character upon which the Amendment insists. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819-20, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2533-34, 45 L.Ed.2d 562, 572-73 (1975). So the Supreme Court has declared that a criminal defendant has a sixth amendment right to dispense with counsel. Id. at 821, 95 S.Ct. at 2534, 45 L.Ed.2d at 573-74. The sixth amendment is made binding on the states through the fourteenth amendment. Id. at 807, 95 S.Ct. at 2527, 45 L.Ed.2d at 566; U.S. Const. amend. XIV. But the sixth amendment applies only to criminal prosecutions and so has no application to postconviction relief proceedings. See State v. Wright, 456 N.W.2d 661, 664-65 (Iowa 1990). II. The key to this case lies in the discretion lodged in the district court by virtue of Iowa Code section 663A.5. Discretion to deny counsel, we think, necessarily implies discretion to deny dispensing with counsel. We see nothing in the language of section 663A.5 indicating a legislative intent to deny the district court such discretion. We hold that Iowa Code section 663A.5 gives the district court discretion to deny a postconviction relief applicant's request to dispense with counsel. We think all the reasons we cited earlier in favor of appointing counsel in postconviction relief proceedings apply with equal force on this issue. As we said, appointment of counsel benefits the applicant, aids the trial court, is conducive to a fair hearing, and is certainly helpful in event of appeal. Furgison, 217 N.W.2d at 615. We temper our holding with one qualification. A postconviction relief applicant may file applications, briefs, resistances, motions, and all other documents the applicant deems appropriate in addition to what the applicant's counsel files. This qualification should give the applicant assurance that all matters the applicant wants raised before the district court will be considered. III. Leonard makes no claim that the district court abused its discretion when it denied his request to dispense with counsel. He only claims he has a right to dispense with counsel. In any event our review of the record convinces us that the district court had ample grounds to deny Leonard's request. We only reverse for abuse of discretion when such discretion is exercised on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable. Rowen v. LeMars Mut. Ins. Co., 357 N.W.2d 579, 583 (Iowa 1984).