Opinion: 417 U.S. 600 (1974)

HOLDING:  The Fourteenth Amendment does not require appointment of counsel for indigent state defendants for discretionary state appeals or application for review by the United States Supreme Court.

Claude Franklin Moffitt, an indigent defendant represented by a state-appointed lawyer, was convicted in state court of forgery in two separate cases in state court.  Both convictions were affirmed by the North Carolina Court of Appeals.  Moffitt then appealed one conviction to the North Carolina Supreme Court and the other to the United States Supreme Court.  Appeals to both the North Carolina and United States Supreme Courts are discretionary, meaning that the higher courts do not have to hear them.  Moffitt requested a state-appointed lawyer for the two appeals but was denied both times. 

Moffitt sought habeas relief for one conviction in the Middle District of North Carolina and for the other conviction in the Western District of North Carolina.  Both federal district courts denied relief.  The Supreme Court held that there is no due process requirement under the Fourteenth Amendment to appoint a lawyer for indigent defendants for discretionary appeals to state supreme courts or to the U.S. Supreme Court.  While appointed lawyers are required for trials, when defendants are presumed innocent and need lawyers in order to receive fair trials, states are not required to provide defendants with any appeal at all, much less with a lawyer to assist in the effort to “upset the determination of guilt.”  A due process violation occurs “only if indigents are singled out by the State and denied meaningful access to the appellate system because of their poverty.”  Nor does the equal protection clause require appointed counsel for discretionary appeals after an appeal to an intermediate court where defendants are represented by counsel.  States are not precluded from appointing counsel for discretionary review, but the Court “leaves these choices to the state.”