Court Opinion

ID: 9460447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:50:41.658227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:37.370298
License: Public Domain

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially):
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s treatment of the first issue, whether Patterson waived his right to appeal. By arguing that he did not knowingly waive his right to appeal, Patterson assumes that he has a federal constitutional right to appeal his state conviction. Certainly the due process clause grants no such right. Griffin v. Illinois, 1956, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891; Martin v. Estelle, 5th Cir. 1974, 492 F.2d 1120. And the principle of equal protection merely requires that if states choose to permit defendants to appeal, they must allow all to appeal. Id. Patterson does not contend, however, that the State permitted some to appeal while denying him the opportunity. Thus Patterson has raised no constitutional right to appeal, making it unnecessary for us to reach the question of waiver.
Patterson had an opportunity to appeal; his complaint is that he was not advised of the full panoply of rights he would enjoy on appeal. Arguably this grievance should have been advanced by an allegation that his court-appointed trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to advise him of these rights. See generally Herring v. Estelle, 5th Cir. 1974, 491 F.2d 125; Worts v. Dutton, 5th Cir. 1968, 395 F.2d 341. Then Patterson would have been raising a constitutional claim by contending he had lost his state-created right to appeal through a constitutional deprivation chargeable to the state. But he did not raise that argument, and we need not pass on it here.