holding that a petitioner who elected to proceed pro se on state court charges could not obtain habeas relief because there is no clearly established right under federal law to access a law library while in jail before trial
How later courts described this case
- holding that a petitioner who elected to proceed pro se on state court charges could not obtain habeas relief because there is no clearly established right under federal law to access a law library while in jail before trial
- finding that a defendant who elected to proceed pro se on state court charges did not have a viable habeas corpus claim on the basis that he was denied access to a law library during pretrial confinement
- noting split and reversing grant of habeas relief because state-court determina- tion that pro se defendant was not entitled to law library access was not contrary to clearly established federal law: “Faretta says nothing about any specific legal aid that the State owes a pro se criminal defendant.”
- finding that federal habeas relief is unavailable based on the denial of expert funding to a self-represented defendant
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Per Curiam.
Respondent Garcia Espitia, a criminal defendant who chose to proceed
pro se,
was convicted in California state court of carjacking and other offenses. He had received no law library access while in jail before trial — despite his repeated requests and court orders to the contrary — and only about four hours of access, during trial, just before closing arguments. (Of course, he had declined, as was his right, to be represented by a lawyer with unlimited access to legal materials.) The California courts rejected his argument that his restricted library access violated his Sixth Amendment rights. Once his sentence became final, he petitioned in Federal District Court for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 . The District Court denied relief, but the
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Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that “the lack of any pretrial access to lawbooks violated Espitia’s constitutional right to represent himself as established by the Supreme Court in
Faretta
[v.
California,
422 U. S. 806 (1975)].”
Garcia Espitia
v.
Ortiz,
113 Fed. Appx. 802, 804 (2004). The warden’s petition for certiorari and respondent’s motion for leave to proceed
in forma pauperis
are granted, the judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded.
A necessary condition for federal habeas relief here is that the state court’s decision be “contrary to, or involv[e] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” § 2254(d)(1). Neither the opinion below7 nor any of the appellate cases it relies on, identifies a source in our case law for the law library access right other than
Faretta .
See
id.,
at 804 (relying on
Bribiesca
v.
Galaza,
215 F. 3d 1015, 1020 (CA9 2000) (quoting
Milton
v.
Morris,
767 F. 2d 1443, 1446 (CA9 1985)));
ibid. (“Faretta
controls this case”).
The federal appellate courts have split on whether
Faretta ,
which establishes a Sixth Amendment right to self-representation, implies a right of the
pro se
defendant to have access to a law library. Compare
Milton, supra,
with
United States
v.
Smith,
907 F. 2d 42, 45 (CA6 1990) (“[B]y knowingly and intelligently waiving his right to counsel, the appellant also relinquished his access to a law library”);
United States ex rel. George
v.
Lane,
718 F. 2d 226, 231 (CA7 1983) (similar). That question cannot be resolved here, however, as it is clear that
Faretta
does not, as § 2254(d)(1) requires, “clearly establis[h]” the law library access right. In fact,
Faretta
says nothing about any specific legal aid that the State owes a
pro se
criminal defendant. The
Bribiesca
court and the court below therefore erred in holding, based on
Faretta ,
that a violation of a law library access right is a basis for federal habeas relief.
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The judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.