Opinion ID: 77551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sixth and Eighth Amendment Right to Postconviction Counsel

Text: 27 The inmates also contend that they have a Sixth and Eighth Amendment right to state-appointed counsel for the preparation and presentation of their postconviction claims. They allege that Sixth and Eighth Amendment requirements evolve as times change. According to the inmates, empirical evidence has emerged since Giarratano that erodes the Supreme Court's premise that trial and direct appeal proceedings are sufficient to ensure the reliability of capital sentences. Given the number of death sentences that have recently been reversed in appellate and postconviction proceedings, 5 the inmates claim that state postconviction proceedings are as essential in ensuring the reliability of an inmate's conviction as the inmate's direct appeal. However, neither the Sixth Amendment nor the Eighth Amendment affords the inmates the relief that they seek. 28 The Sixth Amendment applies only to criminal proceedings. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 576, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2984, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974); see also Giarratano, 492 U.S. at 7, 109 S.Ct. at 2769. As stated earlier, postconviction relief is not part of the criminal proceeding itself; rather, it is civil in nature. Finley, 481 U.S. at 556-57, 107 S.Ct. at 1994. It is a collateral attack that normally occurs only after the direct appeals process is completed and the defendant's conviction has become final. Id. at 557, 107 S.Ct. at 1994. Thus, the Sixth Amendment has no application to the inmates' claims for postconviction counsel. See Giarratano, 492 U.S. at 7-8, 109 S.Ct. at 2769; Finley, 481 U.S. at 555-57, 107 S.Ct. at 1993-94; see also Bourdon v. Loughren, 386 F.3d 88, 96 (2d Cir.2004) ([T]he Sixth Amendment only applies to a defendant's trial and first appeal as of right, not to appeals afforded on a discretionary basis, collateral proceedings, or civil proceedings such as civil rights claims challenging prison conditions.); Williams v. Lockhart, 849 F.2d 1134, 1139 (8th Cir.1988) ([T]he Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel does not attach to post conviction proceedings because they are civil in nature.). 29 As to the inmates' Eighth Amendment claims, the Supreme Court in Giarratano explicitly held that death-sentenced inmates have no Eighth Amendment right to state-provided legal counsel. 492 U.S. at 8-10, 109 S.Ct. at 2769-71. Recognizing that the Constitution placed special constraints on the procedures used to convict an accused of a capital offense, the Court explained that those constraints have all related to the trial stage of capital adjudication, where the court and jury hear testimony, receive evidence, and decide the questions of guilt and punishment. Id. at 8-9, 109 S.Ct. at 2769-70. Heightened procedural requirements do not apply in the context of postconviction proceedings. Giarratano, 492 U.S. at 10, 109 S.Ct. at 2770. This is because state collateral proceedings are not intended to assure the reliability of the criminal process. Rather, it is the trial stage of a capital case that assures the reliability of the process by which the death penalty is imposed. Id.; see also Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750, 111 S.Ct. at 2565 (applying the general requirement of cause and prejudice in a capital case); Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U.S. 249, 256-58, 108 S.Ct. 1792, 1797-98, 100 L.Ed.2d 284 (1988) (declining to create a death penalty exception to the harmless error standard of appellate review); Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 538, 106 S.Ct. 2661, 2668, 91 L.Ed.2d 434 (1986) (rejecting claim that the principles governing procedural default apply differently depending on the nature of the penalty imposed for violation of criminal law); Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 46-51, 104 S.Ct. 871, 877-79, 79 L.Ed.2d 29 (1984) (declining to hold that the Eighth Amendment required proportionality review of death sentences). 30 Neither the Supreme Court nor our sister circuits have withdrawn from this view since Giarratano. Indeed, four years after Giarratano, in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 400-05, 113 S.Ct. 853, 860-63, 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993), the Court held that claims of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence are not grounds for habeas relief, even in a capital case, absent an independent constitutional violation. Recognizing that the Eighth Amendment required increased reliability of the process by which capital punishment is imposed—the trial and sentencing proceedings—the Court declined to require a different standard of review on habeas corpus for the death-sentenced petitioner. Id. at 405, 113 S.Ct. at 863. More recently in Ohio Adult Parole Auth. v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272, 281, 118 S.Ct. 1244, 1250, 140 L.Ed.2d 387 (1998) (plurality opinion as to Part II), the Supreme Court reiterated that distinctions accorded a life interest are primarily relevant to trial, and noted that it had generally rejected attempts to expand any distinctions further. 6 The Court also cited approvingly Justice Powell's concurrence in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 425, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 2610, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986), in which Justice Powell noted that the Court's decisions imposing heightened requirements on capital trials and sentencing proceedings do not apply in the postconviction context. Woodard, 523 U.S. at 281-282, 118 S.Ct. at 1250. See also Rouse v. Lee, 339 F.3d 238, 254 (4th Cir.2003) (While it is undeniable that the Supreme Court has treated death differently, any distinctions between the procedures required in capital and noncapital cases `are primarily relevant to trial,' and the Supreme Court `has generally rejected attempts to expand any [such] distinctions further.') (citations omitted). Therefore, we conclude that the inmates have no Sixth Amendment or Eighth Amendment right to postconviction counsel.