FindLaw > Criminal Law Summaries > Smith v. Robbins

Case: Smith v. Robbins

Issue:  Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), established a procedure for dismissing frivolous appeals and allowing appointed appellate counsel to withdraw from such cases. Is the Anders procedure binding on the states? If not, what minimum procedure is required to protect the right to assistance of counsel on a first appeal as of right?

Facts: Robbins was convicted of second-degree murder and grand theft. His appointed counsel felt an appeal would be frivolous and followed the necessary procedures required by California to withdraw from the case. The appellate court agreed with counsel’s assessment of the case and dismissed the appeal. After exhausting his state postconviction remedies, Robbins filed a federal habeas petition, arguing, among other issues, that the procedure adopted by California for dismissing appeals that appointed counsel feels are frivolous was inadequate, given the requirements of Anders. The federal district court agreed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

Overview of the two procedures:

In Anders, the Supreme Court held that in order to protect the constitutional right to appellate counsel, procedures must be in place to ensure that appointed counsel do not withdraw from appeals which are not wholly frivolous. The procedures outlined in Anders require counsel seeking to withdraw from a case to:

• Advise the court that they feel the case is frivolous and request leave to withdraw;
• Accompany this request with a brief referring to anything in the record that might arguably support an appeal; and,
• Provide the defendant with a copy of the brief and time to raise any further points he chooses.

The court then is required to fully examine the record and decide whether the case is wholly frivolous. If so, the court may grant counsel’s request to withdraw and dismiss the appeal.

The California procedures, on the other hand, do not require counsel to brief any potentially meritorious arguments. Instead the procedures, established in  People v. Wende, 25 Cal. 3d 436 (1979), require that counsel seeking to withdraw from a frivolous appeal:

• File a brief with the appellate court summarizing the procedural and factual history of the case with citations to the record;
• Attest that he has reviewed the record, explained his evaluation of the case to his client, provided the client with a copy of the brief, and informed his client of the client’s right to file a pro se supplemental brief;
• Request that the court independently examine the record for arguable issues; and,
• Express his availability to brief any issues which the court so desires.

Holding: The procedure outlined in Anders is not binding on the states. It is "merely one method of satisfying the requirements of the Constitution for indigent criminal appeals." States are free to experiment with other methods, provided that the end result safeguards an indigent appellant's equal rights to effective appellate counsel. The California procedures provide adequate safeguards and therefore do not deny the defendant any constitutional rights, because they provide an indigent criminal appellant pursuing a first appeal as of right the minimum safeguards necessary to make said appeal "adequate and effective." California's procedures ensure that the appeal "will be resolved in a way that is related to the merit of that appeal."

Reasoning: The court began by ruling that simply because the Wende procedures differ from those established in Anders does not render them unconstitutional. The court cited  McCoy v. Court of Appeals 486 U.S. 429 (1988),  Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75 (1988) and  Pennsylvania v. Finley 481 U.S. 551 (1987). Each of these cases upheld variations on the Anders procedures and suggested that Anders was meant as "a prophylactic framework."

The Court reasoned that the principles of federalism require that states be allowed to experiment and adopt their own procedures which conform with the constitutional obligation to provide appellate counsel.

The court next evaluated the Wende procedures on the merits, ruling that they did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment because they sufficiently ensured to an appellant pursuing a first appeal as of right the minimum safeguards necessary to make the appeal "adequate and effective." In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that although indigents generally have the right to the assistance of counsel on a first appeal as of right, there is no right to bring a frivolous appeal. Thus, the right of the individual to have effective counsel on appeal must be weighed against the state’s interest in protecting its resources against frivolous actions.

The California procedures, the Court ruled, satisfy this balancing test and fulfill the standard set in Anders for a number of reasons. First, Anders had been primarily concerned with procedures that did not require any party to decide that the case was wholly frivolous. Rather, counsel was allowed to withdraw with only a conclusory statement that the appeal would be unsuccessful. The Wende procedures avoid this situation by requiring the appellate court to fully review the record and to order that any arguable issues be briefed by counsel. Only if the court feels there are no such issues is the appeal dismissed. Second, Anders was also concerned with procedures that permitted bare conclusions by counsel, bolstered by references to the record, to suffice to dismiss the case. Again the California procedures avoid this by requiring counsel to summarize the procedural and factual history with references to the record. The Court held that such a procedure was adequate to ensure that "a trained legal eye" has searched the record for arguable issues. Finally, Anders sought to avoid situations in which only the trial judge and/or public defender would review the case to decide the merits. In California, this assessment is made by the appellate court and therefore provides an unbiased evaluation of the merits.

The court then remanded the case for further hearings on whether Robbins’ ineffectiveness of counsel arguments passed the test established in  Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).

Other Opinions: Justices Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer dissented. The dissent identified two shortcomings in the California procedures. First, they permit counsel to refrain as a matter of course from mentioning potentially arguable issues in a no-merits brief. Second, they oblige the appellate court to search the record for arguable issues and decide the merits of the case without the benefit of an issue-spotting, no-merit brief.

As such, by upholding the procedures, the Court adopted a standard that allows any state procedure which "reasonably ensures that an indigent’s appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to the merit of that appeal." Such a standard could be met by any number of non-adversarial systems, including an inquisitorial system. In order to truly provide the indigent defendant with counsel during appeal, therefore, counsel must be required to brief the merits of the case, as outlined in Anders. Procedures such as California’s that do not have this requirement deny the indigent defendant a fundamental element of equal representation — a partisan scrutiny of the record and assessment of potential issues.