278
Opinion of the Court
State to "protect itself so that frivolous appeals are not subsidized and public moneys not needlessly spent," Griffin, supra, at 24 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment). For although, under Douglas, indigents generally have a right to counsel on a first appeal as of right, it is equally true that this right does not include the right to bring a frivolous appeal and, concomitantly, does not include the right to counsel for bringing a frivolous appeal.10 See McCoy, 486 U. S., at 436-438; Douglas, supra, at 357; see also United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 656, n. 19 (1984) ("Of course, the Sixth Amendment does not require that [trial] counsel do what is impossible or unethical"); cf. Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157, 175 (1986) (no violation of Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel when trial counsel refuses to violate ethical duty not to assist his client in presenting perjured testimony). To put the point differently, an indigent defendant who has his appeal dismissed because it is frivolous has not been deprived of "a fair opportunity" to bring his appeal, Evitts, supra, at 405; see Finley, 481 U. S., at 556, for fairness does not require either counsel or a full appeal once it is properly determined that an appeal is frivolous. The obvious goal of Anders was to prevent this limitation on the right to appellate counsel from swallowing the right itself, see Penson, 488 U. S., at 83-84; McCoy, supra, at 444, and we do not retreat from that goal today.
B
We think the Wende procedure reasonably ensures that an indigent's appeal will be resolved in a way that is related to
10 This distinction gives meaning to our previous emphasis on an indi-gent appellant's right to "advocacy." Although an indigent whose appeal is frivolous has no right to have an advocate make his case to the appellate court, such an indigent does, in all cases, have the right to have an attorney, zealous for the indigent's interests, evaluate his case and attempt to discern nonfrivolous arguments. See Ellis, 356 U. S., at 675; Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738, 741-743 (1967).
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