Opinion ID: 2211835
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: mcr 6.005(h)(4) and ross

Text: As detailed above, the Ross Court relied on three particular antecedents when it denied counsel to a defendant seeking a discretionary appeal after a first appeal where counsel was present. In decisions after Ross, the Supreme Court and lower courts have compared the tools defendants have had to those present in Ross when deciding whether to appoint counsel. If the tools are not comparable to those present in Ross, then the cases have been deemed more comparable to Douglas, and counsel has been appointed. [39] See, e.g., Mata, supra . The first of these tools was a transcript of the proceedings below. As discussed above, this tool will not be present under the MCR 6.005(H)(4) scenario. Next, Ross relied on the presence of an appellate brief prepared by appellate counsel for the defendant. Indigent Proposal B defendants, who will have to rely on MCR 6.005(H)(4) under the majority's decision, will have only a trial-level motion, perhaps with a memorandum of law, prepared by trial counsel, offering trial court arguments to the same trial court alleged to have erred. Though the trial court motion is something to point to under MCR 6.005(H)(4), the comparison to Ross is unavailing. Finally, Ross relied on the presence of an appellate opinion. Ross involved an appellate court, presumably the objective higher level of review, reviewing the arguments, researching the issues, and making conclusions of law on the basis of an objective assessment by those sitting on the panel. Under Ross, before an indigent defendant would be left to seek discretionary appellate review on his own, his case would have been passed on by a higher court wholly removed from the initial decision and, for that matter, one given the benefit of an attorney's presentation on his behalf. That court would have rendered a considered decision, offering to him a neutral assessment of the merits and viability of his claims of error. Under MCR 6.005(H)(4), an indigent defendant gets a trial-level decision, perhaps without any citation or explanation of any applicable authority, by the same judge in whom deficiency was alleged. When analyzing claims for counsel, the Supreme Court has repeatedly turned to this analysis under Ross. Indigent Proposal B defendants will have nothing comparable to the tools the defendant had in Ross, leaving them to have only a meaningless ritual rather than a meaningful appeal. Further, as explained above, the simplicity of guilty plea cases does not mitigate the stark contrast between indigent Proposal B defendants and the defendant in Ross, as indigent Proposal B defendants can bring a variety of complex claims on appeal. The majority acknowledges that an indigent Proposal B defendant's tools are not equivalent to those present in Ross, but that acknowledgment is akin to an acknowledgment that the Titanic had some difficulty staying afloat. Under the majority's decision, the instant defendant, and every indigent Proposal B defendant, has nothing like the tools present in Ross. Instead, they have a meaningless ritual.
In closing, I cannot dispute that appellate justice, whether for indigents or otherwise, carries an attendant cost in dollars. [40] This, along with a desire to eliminate a backlog of appellate cases in our Court of Appeals, led to the adoption of Proposal B. [41] Further, for many it is easy to disregard indigent defendants' appeals because [w]e all know that the overwhelming percentage of in forma pauperis appeals are frivolous. Douglas, supra at 358, 83 S.Ct. 814 (Clark, J., dissenting). None of these considerations, however, provides the slightest justification to deny indigent guilty-pleading defendants their constitutional protections. Appellate counsel has consistently been provided as a basic constitutional protection for those who cannot afford to pay for the services of an attorney. As our Supreme Court stated: The need for forceful advocacy does not come to an abrupt halt as the legal proceeding moves from the trial to appellate stage. Both stages of the prosecution, although perhaps involving unique legal skills, require careful advocacy to ensure that rights are not forgone and that substantial legal and factual arguments are not inadvertently passed over. [ Penson, supra at 85, 109 S.Ct. 346.] To prosecute the appeal, a criminal appellant must face an adversary proceeding that-like a trialโis governed by intricate rules that to a layperson would be hopelessly forbidding. An unrepresented appellantโlike an unrepresented defendant at trialโis unable to protect the vital interests at stake. [ Evitts, supra at 396, 105 S.Ct. 830.] Further, with regard to indigent defendants, I again consult the wisdom of our nation's final arbiter of constitutional protections: Statistics compiled in the court below illustrate the undeniable fact that as many meritorious criminal cases come before that court through applications for leave to proceed in forma pauperis as on the paid docket, and that no a priori justification can be found for considering them, as a class, to be more frivolous than those in which costs have been paid. Even-handed administration of the criminal law demands that these cases be given no less consideration than others on the courts' dockets. Particularly since litigants in forma pauperis may, in the trial court, have suffered disadvantages in the defense of their cases inherent in their impecunious condition, is appellate review of their cases any less searching than that accorded paid appeals inappropriate. Indigents' appeals from criminal convictions cannot be used as a convenient valve for reducing the pressures of work on the courts. If there are those who insist on pursuing frivolous litigation, the courts are not powerless to dismiss or otherwise discourage it. But if frivolous litigation exists, we are not persuaded that it is concentrated in this narrow, yet vital, area of judicial duty. [ Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 449-450, 82 S.Ct. 917, 8 L.Ed.2d 21 (1962) (emphasis added).] This Court's decision leaves indigent defendants standing in a cloud of dust on the roadside on the way to appellate justice. Defendants who can pay for the services of an attorney will be represented at trial level, will have their cases reviewed by appellate attorneys, and will have lawyerlike presentations to our Court of Appeals. In other words, they will have meaningful appeals. Defendants who cannot pay for an attorney will have trial level representation, and will be left without any appellate representation whatsoever. The only thing more that they will have is the meaningless ritual in our Court of Appeals.