Court Opinion

ID: 9431488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:23.688371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:04.868216
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” The Court has construed this language to include not only the right to assistance of counsel at trial, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), but also to the assistance of counsel on appeal. Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963). We have also held that the right conferred is not simply to the assistance of counsel, but also to the effective assistance of counsel, both at trial, see United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648 (1984); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), and on appeal, see Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387 (1985).
*90There is undoubtedly an equal protection component in the decisions extending the Sixth Amendment right to counsel on appeal; Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956); Douglas v. California, supra. But we have also recognized that
“[t]he duty of the State under our cases is not to duplicate the legal arsenal that may be privately retained by a criminal defendant in a continuing effort to reverse his conviction, but only to assure 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).
The Court today loses sight of this, and instead seeks to engraft onto our decision in Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738 (1967), a presumption of prejudice when the appellate attorney for an indigent does not exactly follow the procedure laid down in that case. Thus today’s decision is added to the decision in Anders itself as a futile monument to the Court’s effort to guarantee to the indigent appellant what no court can guarantee him: exactly the same sort of legal services that would be provided by suitably retained private counsel.
There are doubtless lawyers admitted to practice in the State of Ohio who, for a substantial retainer, would have filed a brief on behalf of petitioner in the Ohio Court of Appeals urging, with a straight face, all of the claims which petitioner’s appointed attorney decided were frivolous. But nothing in the Constitution or in any rational concept of public policy should lead us to require public financing for that sort of an effort. The Court’s opinion today justifies the Anders brief because it “serves the valuable purpose of assisting the court in determining both that counsel in fact conducted the required detailed review of the case and that the appeal is indeed so frivolous that it may be decided without an adversary presentation.” Ante, at 81-82 (footnote omitted). These may be desirable purposes, but it seems to me that it stretches the Sixth Amendment a good deal to say that it requires these interests to be pursued in this manner. The *91Sixth Amendment does not confer a right to have the court supervise counsel’s assistance as it is rendered, but rather a right to have counsel appointed for the purpose of pursuing the appeal.
Here counsel rendered “assistance” and his performance must be reviewed for ineffectiveness and prejudice before any constitutionally mandated relief is in order. Strickland, supra, at 687-696. Counsel states — and we have no reason to disbelieve him — that he conscientiously reviewed the record and “found no errors requiring reversal, modification and/or vacation of appellant’s jury trial convictions and/or the trial court’s sentence in [his case].” App. 35. As it turned out, that determination was incorrect, but this fact does not mean that counsel did not employ his legal talents in the service of his client. Whether or not this evaluative process constituted “assistance” cannot be affected by its conclusion. “[T]he canons of professional ethics impose limits on permissible advocacy. It is the obligation of any lawyer — whether privately retained or publicly appointed — not to clog the courts with frivolous motions or appeals.” See Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 323 (1981).
This is not to say that an attorney’s erroneous decision to withdraw is necessarily adequate assistance of counsel. That is to be judged under Strickland. Of course, counsel may protect himself from collateral review of the effectiveness of his performance by following the safe-harbor procedures outlined in Anders. As described by the Court today, the filing of an Anders brief creates a strong presumption that counsel has diligently worked on the case and that the court was correct in assessing the frivolousness of the appeal when it allowed withdrawal. Anders may well outline a prudent course to follow for the appointed attorney who wishes to withdraw from a frivolous case. But if counsel declines to follow it, the basic constitutional guarantee of effective assistance remains the underlying standard by which his conduct should be judged.
*92In this case, petitioner was one of a group of three men who broke into a dwelling and robbed, raped, and otherwise sexually assaulted the adult inhabitants. It cannot be questioned that petitioner and his codefendants stood in substantially the same position in defending against the charges.* The appellate court considered the briefs of petitioner’s co-defendants and conducted its own review of the record. It ultimately reversed one of petitioner’s convictions as a result. It also considered but decided against reversing another. Although the “coincidence of interest with a represented codefendant,” ante, at 87, is not a substitute for the assistance of counsel, it certainly may eliminate the prejudice of poor representation if it brings to the court’s attention the meritorious arguments that appointed counsel failed to make. In this case, the merits briefs filed on behalf of his codefendants were substantially more beneficial to petitioner than an Anders brief from his own attorney. The appellate court performed its duty in utilizing the available advocate’s papers on petitioner’s behalf and in exercising its independent judgment of the record. After doing so, it concluded that petitioner had not suffered prejudice from his counsel’s withdrawal without filing an Anders brief. On these facts, I think that conclusion plainly correct.

The Court asserts that “[a]n attorney acting on petitioner’s behalf might well have convinced the court that petitioner’s interests were at odds with his eodefendants’. . . .” Ante, at 87. This appears to be pure speculation. Nothing in the papers filed in this Court, nor in the majority opinion, suggests any theory of how this might be done or why, if such a conflict existed, the court could not discern it from its own review of the record.