Cite as: 528 U. S. 259 (2000)
Souter, J., dissenting
suasiveness through exposure to an interested opponent's readiness to mount a challenge. The government is unlikely to dispute or even test counsel's evaluation; one does not berate an opponent for giving up. To guard against the possibility, then, that counsel has not done the advocate's work of looking hard for potential issues, there must be some prod to find any reclusive merit in an ostensibly unpromising case and some process to assess the lawyer's efforts after the fact. A judicial process that renders constitutional error invisible is, after all, itself an affront to the Constitution. See Penson, supra, at 81-82.
In Anders, we devised such a mechanism to ensure respect for an appellant's rights. See Penson, supra, at 80. A lawyer's request to withdraw on the ground that an appeal is frivolous "must . . . be accompanied by a brief referring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal." Anders, 386 U. S., at 744. This simply means that counsel must do his partisan best, short of calling black white, to flag the points that come closest to being appealable; the lawyer's job is to state the issues that give the defendant his best chances to prevail, even if the best comes up short under the rule against trifling with the court. "[T]he court—not counsel—," we continued, "then proceeds, after a full examination of all the proceedings, to decide whether the case is wholly frivolous." Ibid.
Anders thus contemplates two reviews of the record, each of a markedly different character. First comes review by the advocate, the defendant's interested representative. His job is to identify the best issues the partisan eye can spot. Then comes judicial review from a disinterested judge, who asks two questions: whether the lawyer really did function as a committed advocate, and whether he misjudged the legitimate appealability of any issue. In reviewing the advocate's work, the court is responsible for assuring that counsel has gone as far as advocacy will take him with the best issues undiscounted. We have repeatedly de-
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