Excerpt: “Imagine you’re a criminal-defense lawyer, maybe not many years out of school. Much of your income is from court appointments. One of those appointments involved an open-and-shut case of drug activity. You do your best to defend, but your client is convicted. He now wants you to appeal, but you’re confident there’s nothing in the record or the law that would warrant a reversal.

Imagine you’re an appellate judge. Appointed defense counsel files a motion to withdraw, claiming she can think of no good-faith basis for appeal. Do you grant the motion? And, if so, do you appoint someone else to pursue the appeal, or do you accept her representation and dispose of the case accordingly? What standards do you use in selecting between these options?

Now imagine you’re the client. You’re young and poor, probably male, maybe a minority. You have distrusted the legal system your whole life, even before they locked you up. You think you were set up for this drug crime. And now your lawyer is telling you—and the court—that you have no case for appeal. It figures.”

Excerpt: “Imagine you have been wrongly convicted of a crime. The State’s evidence against you is strong. You do not have any affirmative defenses. You simply deny having committed the crime. After trial, your appointed counsel meets with you. She informs you that she can find no good faith basis for bringing an appeal. Accordingly, she informs you that if you wish to pursue an appeal, she will withdraw as your appointed counsel. Further, she will inform both the appellate court and the State of the strategies that she considered before concluding that there is no good faith basis for arguing your conviction should be overturned. If the appellate court examines the evidence and confirms your appointed counsel’s conclusion, it will not appoint another attorney for you once your appointed counsel withdraws. You will be left to defend yourself pro se.”

Excerpt: “When an indigent defendant has a right to counsel for an appeal, and counsel believes the appeal is wholly frivolous, Texas has adopted the Anders v. California procedure that permits counsel to withdraw from representation and argue to the appellate court why their client’s appeal is wholly frivolous. This Article argues that, either by a change to the disciplinary rules or by judicial decision, Texas should abandon the Anders procedure as other states have. Doing so will promote the integrity of the right to counsel, avoid numerous conflicts and dilemmas created by the Anders procedure, and advance judicial efficiency and public confidence in Texas’s criminal justice system.”