Right To Appeal
Jurisdiction | Maryland |
II. Right to Appeal
A. Defendant's right to appeal
1. No federal constitutional right to appeal
There is no federal constitutional right to appeal. In McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684 (1894), the Defendant was convicted of a crime relating to elections and voter registration. Id. at 685-87. He was denied an appeal bond. Id. On appeal, the defendant argued that the U.S. Constitution guaranteed his right to have bail pending appeal. Id. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding:
An appeal from a judgment of conviction is not a matter of absolute right, independently of constitutional or statutory provisions allowing such an appeal. A review by an appellate court of the final judgment in a criminal case, however grave the offense of which the accused is convicted, was not at common law, and is not now, a necessary element of due process of law. It is wholly within the discretion of the state to allow or not to allow such a review.
Id. at 687; see Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 18 (1956) (no constitutional right to appeal). In Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745 (1983), Justice Brennan, in dissent, stated:
If the question were to come before us in a proper case, I have little doubt that the passage of nearly 30 years since Griffin and some 90 years since McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684 (1894), upon which Justice Frankfurter relied, would lead us to reassess the significance of the factors upon which Justice Frankfurter based his conclusion. I also have little doubt that we would decide that a State must afford at least some opportunity for review of convictions, whether through the familiar mechanism of appeal or through some form of collateral proceeding. There are few, if any, situations in our system of justice in which a single judge is given unreviewable discretion over matters concerning a person's liberty or property, and the reversal rate of criminal convictions on mandatory appeals in the state courts, while not overwhelming, is certainly high enough to suggest that depriving defendants of their right to appeal would expose them to an unacceptable risk of erroneous conviction.
Id. at 756 n.1 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (internal citations omitted).
If a state elects to provide for an appeal, that right may not be restricted in a manner that violates the Equal Protection Clause. Griffin, 351 U.S. at 18. In Griffin, the Defendants were convicted of armed robbery and filed for appeal pursuant to Illinois Law, which provided for writs of error in all criminal cases. Id. at 15-16. However, neither Defendant could afford to have the transcript created and filed a motion with the trial court seeking a waiver of the cost associated with preparing the transcript. Id. The motion was denied. Id. The Supreme Court held that this denial violated the Equal Protection Clause, stating:
There is no meaningful distinction between a rule which would deny the poor the right to defend themselves in a trial court and one which effectively denies the poor an adequate appellate review accorded to all who have money enough to pay the costs in advance. It is true that a State is not required by the Federal Constitution to provide appellate courts or a right to appellate review at all. But that is not to say that a State that does grant appellate review can do so in a way that discriminates against some convicted defendants on account of their poverty. Appellate review has now become an integral part of the Illinois trial system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant. Consequently at all stages of the proceedings the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses protect persons like petitioners from invidious...
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