Cite as: 528 U. S. 259 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
sures that an indigent's appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to the merit of that appeal.8 See id., at 17-18 (plurality opinion) (state law regulating indigents' appeals bore "no rational relationship to a defendant's guilt or innocence"); id., at 22 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment) (law imposed "differentiations . . . that have no relation to a rational policy of criminal appeal"); Douglas, 372 U. S., at 357 (decision of first appeal "without benefit of counsel, . . . no matter how meritorious [an indigent's] case may turn out to be," discriminates between rich and poor rather than between "possibly good and obviously bad cases" (internal quotation marks omitted)); Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305, 310 (1966) (state appellate system must be "free of unreasoned distinctions"); Evitts, supra, at 404 (law in Griffin "decided the appeal in a way that was arbitrary with respect to the issues involved"). Compare Finley, supra, at 556 ("The equal protection guarantee . . . only . . . assure[s] the indigent defendant an adequate opportunity to present his claims fairly in the context of the State's appellate process" (quoting Ross, supra, at 616)), with Evitts, supra, at 405 ("[D]ue process . . . [requires] States . . . to offer each defendant a fair opportunity to obtain an adjudication on the merits of his appeal" (discussing Griffin and Douglas)).9
In determining whether a particular state procedure satisfies this standard, it is important to focus on the underlying goals that the procedure should serve—to ensure that those indigents whose appeals are not frivolous receive the counsel and merits brief required by Douglas, and also to enable the
8 Of course, no procedure can eliminate all risk of error. E. g., Walters v. National Assn. of Radiation Survivors, 473 U. S. 305, 320-321 (1985).
9 Although we have said that an indigent must receive "substantial equality" compared to the legal assistance that a defendant with paid counsel would receive, McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wis., Dist. 1, 486 U. S. 429, 438 (1988), we have also emphasized that "[a]bsolute equality is not required; lines can be and are drawn and we often sustain them," Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 357 (1963).
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