160
Opinion of the Court
in "all criminal prosecutions." They are presented strictly as rights that are available in preparation for trial and at the trial itself. The Sixth Amendment does not include any right to appeal. As we have recognized, "[t]he right of appeal, as we presently know it in criminal cases, is purely a creature of statute." Abney, 431 U. S., at 656. It necessarily follows that the Amendment itself does not provide any basis for finding a right to self-representation on appeal.
The Faretta majority's nontextual interpretation of the Sixth Amendment also included an examination of British criminal jurisprudence and a reference to the opprobrious trial practices before the Star Chamber. 422 U. S., at 821- 824. These inquiries into historical English practices, however, again do not provide a basis for extending Faretta to the appellate process, because there was no appeal from a criminal conviction in England until 1907. See Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 21 (1956) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment); 7 Edw. VII, ch. 23 (1907). Indeed, none of our many cases safeguarding the rights of an indigent appellant has placed any reliance on either the Sixth Amendment or on Faretta. See, e. g., Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 356-358 (1963); Griffin, 351 U. S., at 12.
Finally, the Faretta majority found that the right to self-representation at trial was grounded in part in a respect for individual autonomy. See 422 U. S., at 834. This consideration is, of course, also applicable to an appellant seeking to manage his own case. As we explained in Faretta, at the trial level "[t]o force a lawyer on a defendant can only lead him to believe that the law contrives against him." Ibid. On appellate review, there is surely a similar risk that the appellant will be skeptical of whether a lawyer, who is employed by the same government that is prosecuting him, will serve his cause with undivided loyalty. Equally true on appeal is the related observation that it is the appellant personally who will bear the consequences of the appeal. See ibid.
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