Court Opinion

ID: 9429342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:28.86728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:19.067442
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
I do not join the Court’s opinion, because I need not decide in this case, ante, at 751, whether there is or is not a constitutional right to a first appeal of a criminal conviction, and because I agree with Justice Brennan, and the American Bar Association, ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 21-3.2, Comment, p. 21-42 (2d ed. 1980), that, as an ethical matter, an attorney should argue on appeal all nonfrivolous claims upon which his client insists. Whether or not one agrees with the Court’s view of legal strategy, it seems to me that the lawyer, after giving his client his best opinion as to the course most likely to succeed, should acquiesce in the client’s choice of which nonfrivolous claims to pursue.
Certainly, Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738 (1967), and Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975), indicate that the attorney’s usurpation of certain fundamental decisions can *755violate the Constitution. I agree with the Court, however, that neither my view, nor the ABA’s view, of the ideal allocation of decisionmaking authority between client and lawyer necessarily assumes constitutional status where counsel’s performance is “within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases,” McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759, 771 (1970), and “assure[s] the indigent defendant an adequate opportunity to present his claims fairly in the context of the State’s appellate process,” Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 616 (1974). I agree that both these requirements were met here.
But the attorney, by refusing to carry out his client’s express wishes, cannot forever foreclose review of nonfrivolous constitutional claims. As I noted in Faretta v. California, 422 U. S., at 848 (dissenting opinion), “[f]or such overbearing conduct by counsel, there is a remedy,” citing Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U. S. 1 (1966), and Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 439 (1963). The remedy, of course, is a writ of habeas corpus. Thus, while the Court does not reach the question, ante, at 754, n. 7, I state my view that counsel’s failure to raise on appeal nonfrivolous constitutional claims upon which his client has insisted must constitute “cause and prejudice” for any resulting procedural default under state law. See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977).