Court Opinion

ID: 9603775
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:09:36.290711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:13.751164
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Chief Justice,
concurring:
I concur in Justice Howe’s opinion. However, I write to note that we continue to sidestep an issue that cannot be ignored much longer, i.e., whether those who have been convicted of a crime but cannot afford a lawyer should have a right to paid counsel in connection with their initial posteonvietion proceeding.
The traditional view on this issue, epitomized by the United States Supreme Court decisions cited by Justice Howe, is founded on a number of fictions. Among them are the following: the assertion that postconviction proceedings are “civil” and not an integral part of the usual criminal prosecution; the refusal to acknowledge that a number of legal doctrines, most notably the ineffectiveness of counsel rulings by the United States Supreme Court, have virtually mandated at least one posteonvietion evidentiary hearing and subsequent appeal before even the most diligent defendant’s legal remedies are exhausted; and the legal fiction, indeed deliberate fantasy, that these extraordinary, complex legal doctrines and the associated post-*531conviction proceedings can be handled competently by an unrepresented indigent defendant.
Much of the successive posteonviction writ practice that currently incites public wrath against the criminal justice system can be traced directly to the fact that the system persists in refusing to assure that a defendant has adequate counsel in the initial post-conviction proceeding. In the face of this fact, it is hardly surprising that the courts remain reluctant to shut the courthouse doors on defendants who have never had a fair opportunity to fully litigate their claim to rights bestowed upon them by the federal and state constitutions. See, e.g., Fernandez v. Cook, 783 P.2d 547 (Utah 1989) (holding that ineffectiveness-of-counsel claim can be raised for first time in postconviction proceeding when trial counsel handled initial appeal from conviction).
The public, the judiciary, and even the prosecutorial agencies would be better served if we took our collective heads out of the sand and acted to ensure free counsel to indigent defendants for one omnibus posteon-viction proceeding. Today may not be the day, nor this the ease, on which to address the constitutional questions raised by the current state of affairs. But the time draws nigh when we will be unable to continue avoiding reality in the name of outworn legal fictions. I acknowledge that there may be a number of unspoken administrative and financial considerations that support the present state of affairs. But none of them can withstand scrutiny if the “criminal justice” system is to be worthy of its name. See Gerrish v. Barnes, 844 P.2d 315, 321 (Utah 1992) (Zimmerman, J., concurring).1
DURHAM, J., concurs in the concurring opinion of ZIMMERMAN, C.J.
HALL, J., acted on this case prior to his retirement.

. There are recent indications that the Utah Bar in general may be taking note of problems with the present system that criminal lawyers have known about for a long time. See Randy L. Dryer, Habeas Corpus Practice In Utah — A Franz Kafka Mind Boggier?, Utah Bar J., May 1993, at 4.