274
Opinion of the Court
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' 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." 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 appellate 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 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 criminal procedure." Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 564 (1967) (citing, inter alia, Griffin, supra). Accord, Medina v. California, 505 U. S. 437, 443-444, 447-448 (1992). Justice Stewart, concurring in Spencer, explained further:
"If the Constitution gave me a roving commission to impose upon the criminal courts of Texas my own notions 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
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