Opinion ID: 2278900
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Right to the Effective Assistance of Appellate Counsel Extends Beyond Counsel's Mere Filing of a Merits Brief.

Text: As Hollon correctly notes, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and through it the Sixth Amendment, entitle criminal defendants to the effective assistance of counsel not only at trial, but during a first appeal as of right. Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985). See generally Mason v. Hanks, 97 F.3d 887 (7th Cir.1996). In Evitts, a case from Kentucky, Keith Lucey was convicted of trafficking in a controlled substance, and his retained attorney filed a timely notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals. The attorney failed, however, to file the then-mandatory statement of appeal, and consequently our Court of Appeals granted the Commonwealth's motion to dismiss the appeal. Through habeas review, the case found its way to the United States Supreme Court, and before that Court it was conceded that defense counsel's failure to file the mandatory form constituted ineffective assistance. The Supreme Court held that the Kentucky Court of Appeals' refusal to consider the merits of Lucey's appeal solely on the ground of counsel's deficient performance denied Lucey the due process of law. A few years later, this Court was confronted with an IAAC claim somewhat different from the one the United States Supreme Court had addressed in Evitts. In Hicks v. Commonwealth, supra , following his direct appeal, the merits of which were considered and decided adversely to him, Glen Hicks moved for relief pursuant to RCr 11.42, and alleged that appellate counsel was ineffective because he had failed to raise various issues for consideration on direct appeal. The trial court denied relief, and on appeal to this Court we acknowledged Evitts, but read it narrowly as requiring only the reinstatement of an appeal which had been dismissed as a result of counsel's ineffectiveness. Hicks's claim did not implicate that requirement. Moreover, this Court found a substantial difference in the situation of a convicted defendant for whom no appeal was even taken or one whose appeal was dismissed solely due to neglect of counsel and the situation of a defendant whose appeal was completely processed and the judgment affirmed. In the first case, there was never any consideration of the merits of any substantive issue by the appellate court. In the latter case, the appellate court has considered and decided the merits of the appeal. Hicks, 825 S.W.2d at 281. The Hicks Court concluded that we would not examine anew an appeal reviewed, considered and decided by this Court. Id. Since then, we have refused to recognize the Hicks-type of IAAC claim and have upheld Hicks's narrow reading of Evitts several times. Upon further consideration of Evitts and its progeny in state and federal courts, we can no longer subscribe to this overly limited view of the mandate of Evitts v. Lucey , Technically, perhaps, the United States Supreme Court's holding in Evitts can be limited to the facts then before the Court, but the Court's explanation of its ruling simply does not support such a minimalist reading. As the United States Supreme Court explained, In bringing an appeal as of right from his conviction, a criminal defendant is attempting to demonstrate that the conviction, with its consequent drastic loss of liberty, is unlawful. To prosecute the appeal, a criminal appellant must face an adversary proceeding thatlike a trialis governed by intricate rules that to a layperson would be hopelessly forbidding. An unrepresented appellantlike an unrepresented defendant at trialis unable to protect the vital interests at stake. To be sure, respondent did have nominal representation when he brought his appeal. But nominal representation on an appeal as of rightlike nominal representation at trialdoes not suffice to render the proceedings constitutionally adequate; a party whose counsel is unable to provide effective representation is in no better position than one who has no counsel at all. 469 U.S. at 396, 105 S.Ct. 830. There is no distinction implicit in this explanation between, on the one hand, counsel's procedural missteps that result in dismissal of an appeal and, on the other hand, deficiencies rendering a potentially favorable appeal substantively meritless. Indeed, the Court noted that while Lucey's case involved procedural mistakes, other cases dealing with the right to counseltrial or appellatehad focused on the defendant's need for substantive assistance, for 'counsel's examination into the record, research of the law, and marshalling of arguments on [the client's] behalf.' Id. at 394 n. 6, 105 S.Ct. 830 (quoting Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 358, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963), brackets in original). The Supreme Court elaborated upon a defendant's right to the effective assistance of appellate counsel in Smith v. Robbins, 528 U.S. 259, 120 S.Ct. 746, 145 L.Ed.2d 756 (2000), a case in which the defendant's appeal had been dismissed as frivolous. The Court reiterated that on a first appeal as of right, `[d]ue process . . . [requires] States . . . to offer each defendant a fair opportunity to obtain an adjudication on the merits of his appeal.' 528 U.S. at 277, 120 S.Ct. 746 (quoting from Evitts, 469 U.S. at 405, 105 S.Ct. 830 (brackets and ellipses in original)). That requirement, the Court explained, citing Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), does not prohibit the States from dismissing frivolous appeals. However, it does prohibit such a dismissal except where a defendant has had the assistance of counsel to find non-frivolous grounds for appeal, and then, upon counsel's reasoned conclusion that no such grounds exist, the appellate court has independently determined that counsel's conclusion is warranted. Technically, therefore. Smith, like Evitts, addresses the right to counsel to ensure that an appeal of right is not improperly dismissed so as to frustrate an adjudication on its merits. Relying on this technical distinction between cases, such as Smith and Evitts, in which no merits brief was filed, and cases in which a merits brief has been filed and ruled upon, we have upheld our Hicks ruling even in the wake of Smith. See, e.g., Parrish v. Commonwealth, 272 S.W.3d 161 (Ky.2008). Smith, however, even more than Evitts, strains that distinction beyond what it can reasonably bear. Smith held that defendants pursuing a first appeal as of right are entitled to counsel's effective assistance in identifying non-frivolous grounds for appeal as well as counsel's effective assistance in briefing and otherwise presenting an appeal based on those grounds. The standard for evaluating claims that appellate counsel was ineffective, the Court held, is the familiar deficient-performance plus prejudice standard applied to claims of ineffective trial counsel in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984): Respondent [defendant] must first show that his counsel was objectively unreasonable. . . in failing to find arguable issues to appealthat is, that counsel unreasonably failed to discover nonfrivolous issues and to file a merits brief raising them. If [defendant] succeeds in such a showing, he then has the burden of demonstrating prejudice. That is, he must show a reasonable probability that, but for his counsel's unreasonable failure to file a merits brief, he would have prevailed on his appeal. Smith, 528 U.S. at 285, 120 S.Ct. 746. If the failure to file a merits brief can constitute ineffective assistance, it would seem to follow that the filing of a merits brief that is grossly inadequate because it fails altogether to raise a meritorious issue could do the same. Not surprisingly, therefore, although in Smith the United States Supreme Court did not have before it an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim based on an assertedly deficient merits brief, the sort of claim this Court had before it in Hicks, the vast majority of courts has recognized that the right to the effective assistance of appellate counsel examined in the no-merits-brief circumstances of Smith extends naturally and by necessary implication to the merits-brief situation. Gregory G. Sarno, Annotation, Adequacy of Defense Counsel's Representation of Criminal Client Regarding Appellate and Postconviction Remedies, 15 A.L.R.4th 582 (1982). More is required of appellate counsel than merely filing a brief. The Smith court itself observed that while appellate counsel who files a merits brief need not (and should not) raise every nonfrivolous claim, but rather may select from among them in order to maximize the likelihood of success on appeal . . . it is still possible to bring a Strickland claim based on counsel's failure to raise a particular claim, but it is difficult to demonstrate that counsel was incompetent. 528 U.S. at 288, 120 S.Ct. 746. This statement by the United States Supreme Court clearly indicates that our Hicks distinction between merits-brief and no-merits-brief cases has no constitutional foundation, but rather undercuts a defendant's constitutional right to counsel's effective assistance in preparing a merits brief. We are thus persuaded that it is time, indeed past time, to overrule Hicks and the cases relying upon it and to recognize IAAC claims premised upon appellate counsel's alleged failure to raise a particular issue on direct appeal. To succeed on such a claim, the defendant must establish that counsel's performance was deficient, overcoming a strong presumption that appellate counsel's choice of issues to present to the appellate court was a reasonable exercise of appellate strategy. As the Supreme Court noted in Smith, `[g]enerally, only when ignored issues are clearly stronger than those presented, will the presumption of effective assistance be overcome.' 528 U.S. at 288, 120 S.Ct. 746 ( quoting Gray v. Greer, 800 F.2d 644, 646 (7th Cir.1986)). We further emphasize ignored issues to underscore that IAAC claims will not be premised on inartful arguments or missed case citations; rather counsel must have omitted completely an issue that should have been presented on direct appeal. For further clarity, we additionally emphasize that IAAC claims are limited to counsel's performance on direct appeal; there is no counterpart for counsel's performance on RCr 11.42 motions or other requests for post-conviction relief. Finally, the defendant must also establish that he or she was prejudiced by the deficient performance, which, as noted, requires a showing that absent counsel's deficient performance there is a reasonable probability that the appeal would have succeeded. Smith, supra .