Court Opinion

ID: 9787095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:10:38.76351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:52.167873
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
specially concurring:
I agree with the court that the defendant's advisory appellate counsel acted solely as advisory counsel, and therefore the defendant could not maintain a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel. Maj. op. at 1206. I write briefly to make clear that although it may be helpful to distinguish this case from even the broadest treatments of ineffective assistance by other jurisdictions, I do not understand the court to be opining that a constitutional claim of ineffective assistance of counsel would lie against anyone other than someone who is actually serving as the defendant's counsel or that this jurisdiction recognizes any form of hybrid representation in which the defendant and an attorney act as co-counsel. Nor do I understand the court to be suggesting that excessive interference by advisory counsel, which could deprive a defendant of his right to proceed pro se, might also support a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel in this jurisdiction.
On its face, a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel can apply only to a defendant's counsel. Whether and under what cireumstances someone could become a defendant's counsel, and have both the responsibilities and authority attendant to that position, without entering an appearance or being appointed by the court as such are difficult, fact-specific questions that I would not attempt to answer in a case that clearly did not implicate them. Where this court agrees that the factual findings of the trial court establish the strictly advisory role of the defendant's advisory counsel on appeal, I consider any speculation about situations *1207in which an advisory counsel, at trial or on appeal, might become counsel to be unnecessary to our holding.