(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 1999 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus SMITH, WARDEN v. ROBBINS CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT No. 98­1037. Argued October 5, 1999- Decided January 19, 2000 An attorney appointed to represent an indigent defendant on appeal may conclude that an appeal would be frivolous and request that the appellate court allow him to withdraw or that the court dispose of the case without the filing of merits briefs. In Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738, this Court found that, in order to protect a defendant's con- stitutional right to appellate counsel, courts must safeguard against the risk of granting such requests where an appeal is not actually frivolous; found California's procedure for evaluating such requests inadequate; and set forth an acceptable procedure. California adopted a new procedure in People v. Wende, 25 Cal. 3d 436, 600 P. 2d 1071. Unlike under the Anders procedure, counsel under Wende neither explicitly states that his review has led him to con- clude that an appeal would be frivolous nor requests to withdraw; in- stead he is silent on the merits of the case and offers to brief issues at the court's direction. A California state-court jury convicted respon- dent Robbins of second-degree murder and grand theft. His ap- pointed counsel on appeal concluded that appeal would be frivolous and filed with the State Court of Appeal a brief that complied with the Wende procedure. Agreeing with counsel's assessment, the Court of Appeal affirmed. The California Supreme Court denied review. After exhausting his state postconviction remedies, Robbins sought federal habeas relief, arguing, inter alia, that he had been denied ef- fective assistance of appellate counsel because his counsel's Wende brief did not comply with the Anders requirement that the brief refer "to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal," 386 U. S., at 744. The District Court agreed, concluding that there were at least two issues that might arguably have supported Rob- bins's appeal and finding that his counsel's failure to include them in 2 SMITH v. ROBBINS Syllabus his brief deviated from the Anders procedure and thus amounted to deficient performance by counsel. Rather than requiring Robbins to prove prejudice from this deficiency, the court applied a presumption of prejudice. The Ninth Circuit agreed, concluding that Anders, to- gether with Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353- which held that States must provide appointed counsel to indigent criminal defen- dants on appeal- set forth the exclusive procedure by which ap- pointed counsel's performance could be constitutional, and that coun- sel's brief failed to comply with that procedure. The court, however, remanded the case for the District Court to consider other trial errors raised by Robbins. Held:1. The Anders procedure is only one method of satisfying the Con- stitution's requirements for indigent criminal appeals; the States are free to adopt different procedures, so long as those procedures ade- quately safeguard a defendant's right to appellate counsel. Pp. 6­13. (a) In finding that the California procedure at issue in Anders- which permitted appellate counsel to withdraw upon filing a conclu- sory letter stating that the appeal had "no merit" and permitted the appellate court to affirm the conviction upon reaching the same con- clusion following a review of the record- did not comport with fair procedure and lacked the equality that the Fourteenth Amendment requires, this Court placed the case within a line of precedent begin- ning with Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, and continuing with Doug- las v. California, 372 U. S. 353, that imposed constitutional con- straints on those States choosing to create appellate review. Comparing the California procedure to other procedures that this Court had found invalid and to statutory requirements in the federal courts governing appeals by indigents with appointed counsel, the Court concluded that the finding that the appeal had "no merit" was inadequate because it did not mean that the appeal was so lacking in prospects as to be frivolous. The Court, in a final, separate section, set out what would be an acceptable procedure for treating frivolous appeals. Pp. 6­9. (b) The Ninth Circuit erred in finding that Anders's final section, though unnecessary to the holding in that case, was obligatory upon the States. This Court has never so held; its precedents suggest oth- erwise; and the Ninth Circuit's view runs contrary to this Court's es- tablished practice. In McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wis., Dist. 1, 486 U. S. 429, this Court rejected a challenge to Wisconsin's variation on the Anders procedure, even though that variation, in at least one re- spect, provided less effective advocacy for an indigent. In Pennsylva- nia v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551, the Court explained that the Anders pro- cedure is not an independent constitutional command, but rather a Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 3 Syllabus prophylactic framework; it did not say that this was the only frame- work that could adequately vindicate the right to appellate counsel announced in Douglas. Similarly, in Penson v. Ohio, 488 U. S. 75, the Court described Anders as simply erecting safeguards. Finally, any view of the procedure described in Anders's last section that con- verted it from a suggestion into a straitjacket would contravene this Court's established practice of allowing the States wide discretion, subject to the minimum requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment, to experiment with solutions to difficult policy problems. See e.g., Griffin, supra. The Court, because of its status as a court- particu- larly a court in a federal system- avoids imposing a single solution on the States from the top down and instead evaluates state proce- dures one at a time, while leaving "the more challenging task of crafting appropriate procedures . . . to the laboratory of the States . . . in the first instance," Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring). Pp. 9­13. 2. California's Wende procedure does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 13­22. (a) The precise rationale for the Griffin and Douglas line of cases has never been explicitly stated, but this Court's case law reveals that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment largely converge to require that a State's procedure "af- ford adequate and effective appellate review to indigent defendants," Griffin, supra, at 20 (plurality opinion). A State's procedure provides such review so long as it reasonably ensures that an indigent's appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to the merit of that appeal. In determining whether a particular procedure satisfies this stan- dard, it is important to focus on the underlying goals that the proce- dure should serve- to ensure that those indigents whose appeals are not frivolous receive the counsel and merits brief required by Doug- las, and also to enable the State to "protect itself so that frivolous ap- peals are not subsidized and public moneys not needlessly spent," Griffin, supra, at 24 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment). For an indigent's right to counsel on direct appeal does not include the right to bring a frivolous appeal and, concomitantly, does not include the right to counsel for bringing a frivolous appeal. Anders's obvious goal was to prevent this limitation on the right to appellate counsel from swallowing the right itself, and the Court does not retreat from that goal here. Pp. 14­16. (b) The Wende procedure reasonably ensures that an indigent's appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to the appeal's merit. A comparison of that procedure to those evaluated in this Court's chief cases demonstrates that it affords indigents the adequate and effective appellate review required by the Fourteenth Amendment. 4 SMITH v. ROBBINS Syllabus The Wende procedure is undoubtedly far better than those procedures the Court has found inadequate. A significant fact in finding the old California procedure inadequate in Anders, and also in finding in- adequate the procedures that the Court reviewed in Eskridge v. Washington Bd. of Prison Terms and Paroles, 357 U. S. 214, and Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477, two of the precedents on which the An- ders Court relied, was that those procedures required only a determi- nation that the defendant was unlikely to prevail on appeal, not that the appeal was frivolous. Wende, by contrast, requires both counsel and the court to find the appeal to be lacking in arguable issues, i.e., frivolous. An additional problem with the old California procedure was that it apparently permitted an appellate court to allow counsel to withdraw and then decide the appeal without appointing new counsel. Such a procedure was struck down in Penson v. Ohio, 488 U. S. 75, because it permitted a basic violation of the Douglas right to have counsel until a case is determined to be frivolous and to receive a merits brief for a nonfrivolous appeal. Under Wende, by contrast, Douglas violations do not occur, both because counsel does not move to withdraw and because the court orders briefing if it finds arguable issues. The procedure disapproved in Anders also only required counsel to file a one-paragraph "bare conclusion" that the appeal had no merit, while Wende requires that counsel provide a summary of the case's procedural and factual history, with citations of the record, in order to ensure that a trained legal eye has searched the record for arguable issues and to assist the reviewing court in its own evalua- tion. Finally, by providing at least two tiers of review, the Wende procedure avoids the additional flaw, found in the Eskridge, Lane, and Douglas procedures, of having only one such tier. Pp. 16­19. (c) The Wende procedure is also at least comparable to those pro- cedures the Court has approved. By neither requiring the Wende brief to raise legal issues nor requiring counsel to explicitly describe the case as frivolous, California has made a good-faith effort to miti- gate one of the problems that critics have found with Anders, namely, the requirement that counsel violate his ethical duty as an officer of the court (by presenting frivolous arguments) as well as his duty to further his client's interests (by characterizing the client's claims as frivolous). Wende also attempts to resolve another Anders problem- that it apparently adopts gradations of frivolity and uses two differ- ent meanings for the phrase "arguable issue"- by drawing the line at frivolity and by defining arguable issues as those that are not frivo- lous. Finally, the Wende procedure appears to be, in some ways, bet- ter than the one approved in McCoy, and in other ways, worse. On balance, the Court cannot say that the latter, assuming arguendo that they outweigh the former, do so sufficiently to make the Wende Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 5 Syllabus procedure unconstitutional, and the Court's purpose under the Con- stitution is not to resolve such arguments. The Court addresses not what is prudent or appropriate, but what is constitutionally com- pelled. United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 665, n. 38. It is enough to say that the Wende procedure, like the Anders and McCoy procedures, and unlike the ones in, e.g., Douglas and Penson, affords adequate and effective appellate review for criminal indigents. Pp. 19­22. 3. This case is remanded for the Ninth Circuit to evaluate Rob- bins's ineffective-assistance claim. It may be that his appeal was not frivolous and that he was thus entitled to a merits brief. Both the District Court and the Ninth Circuit found that there were two argu- able issues on direct appeal, but it is unclear how they used the phrase "arguable issues." It is therefore necessary to clarify how strong those issues are. The proper standard for evaluating Rob- bins's claim on remand is that enunciated in Strickland v. Washing- ton, 466 U. S. 668: He must first show that his counsel was objec- tively unreasonable, id., at 687­691, in failing to find arguable issues to appeal, and, if Robbins succeeds in such a showing, he then has the burden of demonstrating prejudice, id., at 694. He must satisfy both prongs of the Strickland test to prevail, for his claim does not warrant a presumption of prejudice. He has received appellate coun- sel who has complied with a valid state procedure for determining whether his appeal is frivolous, and the State has not left him with- out counsel on appeal. Thus, it is presumed that the result of the proceedings is reliable, and Robbins must prove the presumption in- correct. Further, his claim does not fall within any of the three cate- gories of cases in which prejudice is presumed, for it does not involve the complete denial of counsel on appeal, state interference with counsel's assistance, or an actual conflict of interest on his counsel's part. Id., at 692, 694. Pp. 22­27. 152 F. 3d 1062, reversed and remanded. THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 1 Opinion of the Court NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 98­1037 _________________ GEORGE SMITH, WARDEN, PETITIONER v. LEE ROBBINS ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [January 19, 2000] JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. Not infrequently, an attorney appointed to represent an indigent defendant on appeal concludes that an appeal would be frivolous and requests that the appellate court allow him to withdraw or that the court dispose of the case without the filing of merits briefs. In Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738 (1967), we held that, in order to protect indigent defendants' constitutional right to appellate counsel, courts must safeguard against the risk of grant- ing such requests in cases where the appeal is not actually frivolous. We found inadequate California's procedure- which permitted appellate counsel to withdraw upon filing a conclusory letter stating that the appeal had "no merit" and permitted the appellate court to affirm the conviction upon reaching the same conclusion following a review of the record. We went on to set forth an acceptable proce- dure. California has since adopted a new procedure, which departs in some respects from the one that we delineated in Anders. The question is whether that depar- ture is fatal. We hold that it is not. The procedure we sketched in Anders is a prophylactic one; the States are free to adopt different procedures, so long as those proce- 2 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court dures adequately safeguard a defendant's right to appel- late counsel. IA Under California's new procedure, established in People v. Wende, 25 Cal. 3d 436, 441­442, 600 P. 2d 1071, 1074­ 1075 (1979), and followed in numerous cases since then, see, e.g., People v. Rowland, 75 Cal. App. 4th 61, 63, 88 Cal. Rptr. 2d 900, 901 (1999), counsel, upon concluding that an appeal would be frivolous, files a brief with the appellate court that summarizes the procedural and fac- tual history of the case, with citations of the record. He also attests 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 the client of his right to file a pro se supplemental brief. He further re- quests that the court independently examine the record for arguable issues. Unlike under the Anders procedure, counsel following Wende neither explicitly states that his review has led him to conclude that an appeal would be frivolous (although that is considered implicit, see Wende, 25 Cal. 3d, at 441­442, 600 P. 2d, at 1075) nor requests leave to withdraw. Instead, he is silent on the merits of the case and expresses his availability to brief any issues on which the court might desire briefing. See generally id., at 438, 441­442, 600 P. 2d, 1072, 1074­1075. The appellate court, upon receiving a "Wende brief," must "conduct a review of the entire record," regardless of whether the defendant has filed a pro se brief. Id., at 441­ 442, 600 P. 2d, at 1074­1075. The California Supreme Court in Wende required such a thorough review notwith- standing a dissenting Justice's argument that it was unnecessary and exceeded the review that a court per- forms under Anders. See 25 Cal. 3d, at 444­445, 600 P. 2d, at 1077 (Clark, J., concurring in judgment and Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 3 Opinion of the Court dissenting in part); see also id., at 444, 600 P. 2d, at 1076 ("The precise holding in Anders was that a `no merit' letter . . . `was not enough.' . . . Just what is `enough' is not clear, but the majority of the court in that case did not require an appellate court to function as cocounsel"). If the ap- pellate court, after its review of the record pursuant to Wende, also finds the appeal to be frivolous, it may affirm. See id., at 443, 600 P. 2d, at 1076 (majority opinion). If, however, it finds an arguable (i.e., nonfrivolous) issue, it orders briefing on that issue. Id., at 442, n. 3, 600 P. 2d, at 1075, n. 3.1 B In 1990, a California state-court jury convicted respond- ent Lee Robbins of second-degree murder (for fatally shooting his former roommate) and of grand theft of an automobile (for stealing a truck that he used to flee the State after committing the murder). Robbins was sen- tenced to 17 years to life. He elected to represent himself at trial, but on appeal he received appointed counsel. His appointed counsel, concluding that an appeal would be frivolous, filed with the California Court of Appeal a brief - - - - - - 1 In addition to this double review and double determination of fri- volity, California affords a third layer of review, through the California Appellate Projects, described in a recent opinion by the California Court of Appeal for the First District: "[The appellate projects] are under contract to the court; their con- tractual duties include review of the records to assist court-appointed counsel in identifying issues to brief. If the court-appointed counsel can find no meritorious issues to raise and decides to file a Wende brief, an appellate project staff attorney reviews the record again to determine whether a Wende brief is appropriate. Thus, by the time the Wende brief is filed in the Court of Appeal, the record in the case has been reviewed both by the court-appointed counsel (who is presumably well qualified to handle the case) and by an experienced attorney on the staff of [the appellate project]." People v. Hackett, 36 Cal. App. 4th 1297, 1311, 43 Cal. Rptr. 2d 219, 228 (1995). 4 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court that complied with the Wende procedure.2 Robbins also availed himself of his right under Wende to file a pro se supplemental brief, filing a brief in which he contended that there was insufficient evidence to support his convic- tion and that the prosecutor violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), by failing to disclose exculpatory evidence. The California Court of Appeal, agreeing with counsel's assessment of the case, affirmed. The court explained that it had "examined the entire record" and had, as a result, concluded both that counsel had fully complied with his responsibilities under Wende and that "no arguable issues exist." App. 39. The court added that the two issues that Robbins raised in his supplemental brief had no support in the record. Ibid. The California Supreme Court denied Robbins's petition for review. After exhausting state postconviction remedies, Robbins filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2254.3 Robbins renewed his Brady claim, argued that the state trial court had erred by not allowing him to withdraw his waiver of his right to trial counsel, and added nine other claims of trial error. In addition, and most importantly for present purposes, he claimed that he had been denied effective assistance of appellate counsel because his appellate counsel's Wende brief failed to comply with Anders v. - - - - - - 2 Before filing his Wende brief, counsel consulted with the California Appellate Project for the Second District Court of Appeal and received its permission to file such a brief. App. 43. 3 The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 1214, which amended §2254 and related provisions, does not apply to respondent's habeas petition, since he filed his petition before that Act's effective date of April 24, 1996. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U. S. 320 (1997). Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 5 Opinion of the Court California, 368 U. S., at 744. Anders set forth a procedure for an appellate counsel to follow in seeking permission to withdraw from the representation when he concludes that an appeal would be frivolous; that procedure includes the requirement that counsel file a brief "referring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal," ibid. The District Court agreed with Robbins's last claim, concluding that there were at least two issues that, pursu- ant to Anders, counsel should have raised in his brief (in a Wende brief, as noted above, counsel is not required to raise issues): first, whether the prison law library was adequate for Robbins's needs in preparing his defense after he elected to dismiss his appointed counsel and proceed pro se at trial, and, second, whether the trial court erred in refusing to allow him to withdraw his waiver of counsel. The District Court did not attempt to determine the likelihood that either of these two issues would have prevailed in an appeal. Rather, it simply concluded that, in the language of the Anders procedure, these issues "might arguably" have "support[ed] the appeal," App. 51, n. 6 (citing Anders), and thus that Robbins's appellate counsel, by not including them in his brief, deviated from the procedure set forth in Anders. The court concluded that such a deviation amounted to deficient performance by counsel. In addition, rather than requiring Robbins to show that he suffered prejudice from this deficient per- formance, the District Court applied a presumption of prejudice. App. 49. Thus, based simply on a finding that appellate counsel's brief was inadequate under Anders, the District Court ordered California to grant respondent a new appeal within 30 days or else release him from custody. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir- cuit agreed with the District Court on the Anders issue. In the Ninth Circuit's view, Anders, together with Douglas 6 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963), which held that States must provide appointed counsel to indigent criminal de- fendants on appeal, "set forth the exclusive procedure through which appointed counsel's performance can pass constitutional muster." 152 F. 3d 1062, 1066 (1998). Rejecting petitioner's argument that counsel's brief was sufficient because it complied with Wende, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the brief was deficient because it did not, as the Anders procedure requires, identify any legal issues that arguably could have supported the ap- peal. 152 F. 3d, at 1066­1067.4 The court did not decide whether a counsel's deviation from Anders, standing alone, would warrant a new appeal, see 152 F. 3d, at 1066­1067, but rather concluded that the District Court's award of relief was proper because counsel had failed to brief the two arguable issues that the District Court iden- tified. The Ninth Circuit remanded, however, for the District Court to consider respondent's 11 claims of trial error. Id., at 1069. The court reasoned that if Robbins prevailed on any of these claims, it would be unnecessary to order the California Court of Appeal to grant a new direct appeal. We granted certiorari. 526 U. S. 1003 (1999). II A In Anders, we reviewed an earlier California procedure for handling appeals by convicted indigents. Pursuant to that procedure, Anders's appointed appellate counsel had - - - - - - 4 In subsequent cases, the Ninth Circuit has reiterated its view that the Wende procedure is unconstitutional because it differs from the Anders procedure. See Delgado v. Lewis, 181 F. 3d 1087, 1090, 1093 (1999), cert. pending, No. 98­1427; Davis v. Kramer, 167 F. 3d 494, 496, 497­498, stay granted pending disposition of pet. for cert., 527 U. S. - (1999). Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 7 Opinion of the Court filed a letter stating that he had concluded that there was "no merit to the appeal," Anders, 386 U. S., at 739­740. Anders, in response, sought new counsel; the State Court of Appeal denied the request, and Anders filed a pro se appellate brief. That court then issued an opinion that reviewed the four claims in his pro se brief and affirmed, finding no error (or no prejudicial error). People v. Anders, 167 Cal. App. 2d 65, 333 P. 2d 854 (1959). Anders thereaf- ter sought a writ of habeas corpus from the State Court of Appeal, which denied relief, explaining that it had again reviewed the record and had found the appeal to be " `without merit.' " Anders, 386 U. S., at 740 (quoting unreported memorandum opinion). We held that "California's action does not comport with fair procedure and lacks that equality that is required by the Fourteenth Amendment." Id., at 741. We placed the case within a line of precedent beginning with Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), and continuing with Douglas, supra, that imposed constitutional constraints on States when they choose to create appellate review.5 In finding the California procedure to have breached these constraints, we compared it to other procedures we had found invalid and to statutory requirements in the federal courts governing appeals by indigents with appointed counsel. Anders, supra, at 741­743. We relied in particular on Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674 (1958) (per curiam), a case involving federal statutory requirements, and quoted the following passage from it: " ` If counsel is convinced, after conscientious investi- gation, that the appeal is frivolous, of course, he may ask to withdraw on that account. If the court is satis- - - - - - - 5 The Constitution does not, however, require States to create appel- late review in the first place. See, e.g., Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 606 (1974) (citing McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687 (1894)). 8 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court fied that counsel has diligently investigated the possi- ble grounds of appeal, and agrees with counsel's evaluation of the case, then leave to withdraw may be allowed and leave to appeal may be denied.' " Anders, supra, at 741­742 (quoting Ellis, supra, at 675). In Anders, neither counsel, the state appellate court on direct appeal, nor the state habeas courts had made any finding of frivolity.6 We concluded that a finding that the appeal had "no merit" was not adequate, because it did not mean that the appeal was so lacking in prospects as to be "frivolous": "We cannot say that there was a finding of frivolity by either of the California courts or that counsel acted in any greater capacity than merely as amicus cu- riae which was condemned in Ellis." 386 U. S., at 743. Having rejected the California procedure, we proceeded, in a final, separate section, to set out what would be an acceptable procedure for treating frivolous appeals: "[I]f counsel finds his case to be wholly frivolous, after a conscientious examination of it, he should so advise the court and request permission to withdraw. That request must, however, be accompanied by a brief re- ferring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal. A copy of counsel's brief should be furnished the indigent and time allowed him to raise any points that he chooses; the court- not counsel- then proceeds, after a full examination of all the pro- ceedings, to decide whether the case is wholly frivo- - - - - - - 6 The same was true in Ellis itself. See Ellis v. United States, 249 F. 2d 478, 480­481 (CADC 1957) (Washington, J., dissenting) ("Coun- sel . . . concluded that the rulings of the District Court were not `so clearly erroneous as to constitute probable error.' . . . Where, as here, there was a fairly arguable question, counsel should have proceeded to present argument"), vacated and remanded, 356 U. S. 674 (1958) (per curiam). Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 9 Opinion of the Court lous. If it so finds it may grant counsel's request to withdraw and dismiss the appeal insofar as federal requirements are concerned, or proceed to a decision on the merits, if state law so requires. On the other hand, it if finds any of the legal points arguable on their merits (and therefore not frivolous) it must, prior to decision, afford the indigent the assistance of counsel to argue the appeal." Id., at 744. We then concluded by explaining how this procedure would be better than the California one that we had found deficient. Among other things, we thought that it would "induce the court to pursue all the more vigorously its own review because of the ready references not only to the record but also to the legal authorities as furnished it by counsel." Id., at 745. B The Ninth Circuit ruled that this final section of Anders, even though unnecessary to our holding in that case, was obligatory upon the States. We disagree. We have never so held; we read our precedents to suggest otherwise; and the Ninth Circuit's view runs contrary to our established practice of permitting the States, within the broad bounds of the Constitution, to experiment with solutions to diffi- cult questions of policy. In McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wis., Dist. 1, 486 U. S. 429 (1988), we rejected a challenge to Wisconsin's varia- tion on the Anders procedure. Wisconsin had departed from Anders by requiring Anders briefs to discuss why each issue raised lacked merit. The defendant argued that this rule was contrary to Anders and forced counsel to violate his ethical obligations to his client. We, however, emphasized that the right to appellate representation does not include a right to present frivolous arguments to the court, 486 U. S., at 436, and, similarly, that an attorney is "under an ethical obligation to refuse to prosecute a frivolous appeal," ibid. 10 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court (footnote omitted). Anders, we explained, merely aims to "assure the court that the indigent defendant's constitu- tional rights have not been violated." 486 U. S., at 442. Because the Wisconsin procedure adequately provided such assurance, we found no constitutional violation, notwith- standing its variance from Anders. See 486 U. S., at 442­ 444. We did, in McCoy, describe the procedure at issue as going "one step further" than Anders, McCoy, supra, at 442, thus suggesting that Anders might set a mandatory minimum, but we think this description of the Wisconsin procedure questionable, since it provided less effective advocacy for an indigent- in at least one respect- than does the Anders procedure. The Wisconsin procedure, by providing for one-sided briefing by counsel against his own client's best claims, probably made a court more likely to rule against the indigent than if the court had simply received an Anders brief. In Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551 (1987), we explained that the Anders procedure is not "an independ- ent constitutional command," but rather is just "a pro- phylactic framework" that we established to vindicate the constitutional right to appellate counsel announced in Douglas. 481 U. S., at 555. We did not say that our An- ders procedure was the only prophylactic framework that could adequately vindicate this right; instead, by making clear that the Constitution itself does not compel the Anders procedure, we suggested otherwise. Similarly, in Penson v. Ohio, 488 U. S. 75 (1988), we described Anders as simply erecting "safeguards." 488 U. S., at 80. It is true that in Penson we used some language sug- gesting that Anders is mandatory upon the States, see, 488 U. S., at 80­82, but that language was not necessary to the decision we reached. We had no reason in Penson to determine whether the Anders procedure was mandatory, because the procedure at issue clearly failed under Doug- las, see infra, at 18. Further, counsel's action in Penson Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 11 Opinion of the Court was closely analogous to the action of counsel that we found invalid in Anders, see Penson, supra, at 77­78, so there was no need to rely on the Anders procedure, as opposed to just the Anders holding, to find counsel's action improper. See 488 U. S., at 77 ("The question presented by this case is remarkably similar [to the one presented in Anders] and therefore requires a similar answer"). Finally, any view of the procedure we described in the last section of Anders that converted it from a suggestion into a straitjacket would contravene our established prac- tice, rooted in federalism, of allowing the States wide discretion, subject to the minimum requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment, to experiment with solutions to difficult problems of policy. In Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), which we invoked as the foundational case for our holding in Anders, see Anders, 386 U. S., at 741, we expressly disclaimed any pretensions to rulemaking authority for the States in the area of indigent criminal appeals. We imposed no broad rule or procedure but merely held unconstitutional Illinois's requirement that indigents pay a fee to receive a trial transcript that was essential for bringing an appeal. Justice Frankfurter, who provided the necessary fifth vote for the holding in Griffin, emphasized that it was not for this Court "to tell Illinois what means are open to the indigent and must be chosen. Illinois may prescribe any means that are within the wide area of its constitutional discretion" and "may protect itself so that frivolous appeals are not subsidized and public moneys not needlessly spent." Griffin, 351 U. S., at 24 (opinion concurring in judgment). He added that while a State could not "bolt the door to equal justice," it also was not obliged to "support a wasteful abuse of the appel- late process." Ibid. The Griffin plurality shared this view, explaining that the Court was not holding "that Illinois must purchase a stenographer's transcript in every case where a defendant cannot buy it. The Supreme Court [of 12 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court Illinois] may find other means of affording adequate and effective appellate review to indigent defendants." Id., at 20.In a related context, we stated this basic principle of federalism in the very Term in which we decided Anders. We emphatically reaffirmed that the Constitution "has never been thought [to] establish this Court as a rule- making organ for the promulgation of state rules of crimi- nal procedure." Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 564 (1967) (citing, inter alia, Griffin, supra). Accord Medina v. California, 505 U. S. 437, 443­444, 447­448 (1992). Jus- tice Stewart, concurring in Spencer, explained further: "If the Constitution gave me a roving commission to impose upon the criminal courts of Texas my own no- tions of enlightened policy, I would not join the Court's opinion. . . . [But] [t]he question is whether those procedures fall below the minimum level the Fourteenth Amendment will tolerate. Upon that question, I am constrained to join the opinion and judgment of the Court." 385 U. S., at 569 (concurring opinion). We have continued to reiterate this principle in recent years. See Finley, 481 U. S., at 559 (refusing to accept the premise that "when a State chooses to offer help to those seeking relief from convictions, the Federal Constitution dictates the exact form such assistance must assume"); ibid. (explaining that States have "substantial discretion to develop and implement programs to aid prisoners seeking to secure postconviction review"); Murray v. Giar- ratano, 492 U. S. 1, 13 (1989) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) ("[N]or does it seem to me that the Constitution requires the States to follow any particular federal model in [post- conviction] proceedings. . . . States [have] considerable discretion"); id., at 14 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judg- ment) ("[J]udicial imposition of a categorical remedy . . . Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 13 Opinion of the Court might pretermit other responsible solutions being consid- ered in Congress and state legislatures"). Although Finley and Murray involved postconviction proceedings (in which there is no constitutional right to counsel) rather than direct appeal, we think, as the language of Griffin sug- gests, that the principle is the same in both contexts. For in Griffin, as here, there was an underlying constitutional right at issue. In short, it is more in keeping with our status as a court, and particularly with our status as a court in a federal system, to avoid imposing a single solution on the States from the top down. We should, and do, evaluate state procedures one at a time, as they come before us, see Murray, supra, at 14, while leaving "the more challenging task of crafting appropriate procedures . . . to the labora- tory of the States in the first instance." Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261, 292 (1990) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We will not cavalierly "imped[e] the States' ability to serve as laboratories for testing solutions to novel legal problems." Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. 1, 24 (1995) (GINSBURG, J., dissenting). Accordingly, we hold that the Anders procedure is merely one method of satis- fying the requirements of the Constitution for indigent criminal appeals. States may- and, we are confident, will- craft procedures that, in terms of policy, are superior to, or at least as good as, that in Anders. The Constitution erects no barrier to their doing so.7 III Having determined that California's Wende procedure is - - - - - - 7 States have, in fact, already been doing this to some degree. See Warner, Anders in the Fifty States: Some Appellants' Equal Protection is More Equal Than Others', 23 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 625, 642­662 (1996); Arizona v. Clark, - P. 2d - , No. 1 CA­CR 97­0673, 1999 WL 21250, ¶¶25­38 (Ariz. App., Jan. 19, 1999). 14 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court not unconstitutional merely because it diverges from the Anders procedure, we turn to consider the Wende proce- dure on its own merits. We think it clear that California's system does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, for it provides "a criminal appellant pursuing a first appeal as of right [the] minimum safeguards necessary to make that appeal `adequate and effective,' " Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387, 392 (1985) (quoting Griffin, 351 U. S., at 20 (plurality opinion)). A As we have admitted on numerous occasions, "[t]he precise rationale for the Griffin and Douglas lines of cases has never been explicitly stated, some support being de- rived from the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and some from the Due Process Clause of that Amendment.' " Evitts, supra, at 403 (quoting Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 608­609 (1974) (footnote omitted)). But our case law reveals that, as a practical matter, the two clauses largely converge to require that a State's procedure "afford adequate and effective appellate review to indigent defendants," Griffin, 351 U. S., at 20 (plurality opinion). A State's procedure provides such review so long as it reasonably ensures that an indigent's appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to the merit of that ap- peal.8 See id., at 17­18 (plurality opinion) (state law regulating indigents' appeals bore "no rational relation- ship to a defendant's guilt or innocence"); id., at 22 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment) (law imposed "differentiations . . . that have no relation to a rational policy of criminal appeal"); Douglas, 372 U. S., at 357 (decision of first appeal "without benefit of counsel, . . . no matter how meritorious [an indigent's] case may turn out - - - - - - 8 Of course, no procedure can eliminate all risk of error. E.g., Walters v. National Assn. of Radiation Survivors, 473 U. S. 305, 320­321 (1985). Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 15 Opinion of the Court to be" discriminates between rich and poor rather than between "possibly good and obviously bad cases" (internal quotation marks omitted)); Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305, 310 (1966) (state appellate system must be "free of unreasoned distinctions"); Evitts, supra, at 404 (law in Griffin "decided the appeal in a way that was arbitrary with respect to the issues involved"). Compare Finley, 481 U. S., at 556 ("The equal protection guarantee . . . only . . . assure[s] the indigent defendant an adequate opportunity to present his claims fairly in the context of the State's appellate process" (quoting Ross, supra, at 616)), with Evitts, supra, at 405 ("[D]ue process . . . [requires] States . . . to offer each defendant a fair opportunity to obtain an adjudication on the merits of his appeal" (discussing Grif- fin and Douglas)).9 In determining whether a particular state procedure satisfies this standard, it is important to focus on the underlying goals that the procedure should serve- to ensure that those indigents whose appeals are not frivo- lous receive the counsel and merits brief required by Douglas, and also to enable the State to "protect itself so that frivolous appeals are not subsidized and public mon- eys not needlessly spent," Griffin, supra, at 24 (Frank- furter, J., concurring in judgment). For although, under Douglas, indigents generally have a right to counsel on a first appeal as of right, it is equally true that this right does not include the right to bring a frivolous appeal and, concomitantly, does not include the right to counsel for - - - - - - 9 Although we have said that an indigent must receive "substantial equality" compared to the legal assistance that a defendant with paid counsel would receive, McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wis., Dist. 1, 486 U. S. 429, 438 (1988), we have also emphasized that "[a]bsolute equal- ity is not required; lines can be and are drawn and we often sustain them," Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 357 (1963). 16 SMITH v. ROBBINS Opinion of the Court bringing a frivolous appeal.10 See McCoy, 486 U. S., at 436­438; Douglas, supra, at 357; see also United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 656, n. 19 (1984) ("Of course, the Sixth Amendment does not require that [trial] counsel do what is impossible or unethical"); cf. Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157, 175 (1986) (no violation of Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel when trial counsel refuses to violate ethical duty not to assist his client in presenting perjured testimony). To put the point differently, an indigent defendant who has his appeal dismissed because it is frivolous has not been deprived of "a fair opportunity" to bring his appeal, Evitts, supra, at 405; see Finley, supra, at 556, for fairness does not require either counsel or a full appeal once it is properly deter- mined that an appeal is frivolous. The obvious goal of Anders was to prevent this limitation on the right to ap- pellate counsel from swallowing the right itself, see Pen- son, 488 U. S., at 83­84; McCoy, supra, at 444, and we do not retreat from that goal today. B We think the Wende procedure reasonably ensures that an indigent's appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to the merit of that appeal. Whatever its strengths or weaknesses as a matter of policy, we cannot say that it fails to afford indigents the adequate and effective appellate review that the Fourteenth Amendment re- quires. A comparison of the Wende procedure to the pro- cedures evaluated in our chief cases in this area makes - - - - - - 10 This distinction gives meaning to our previous emphasis on an indigent appellant's right to "advocacy." Although an indigent whose appeal is frivolous has no right to have an advocate make his case to the appellate court, such an indigent does, in all cases, have the right to have an attorney, zealous for the indigent's interests, evaluate his case and attempt to discern nonfrivolous arguments. See Ellis, 356 U. S., at 675; Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738, 741­743 (1967). Cite as: 528 U. S. ____ (2000) 17 Opinion of the Court this evident. The Wende procedure is undoubtedly far better than those procedures we have found inadequate. Anders itself, in disapproving the former California