Cite as: 528 U. S. 259 (2000)
Souter, J., dissenting
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 685 (1984) ("The Sixth Amendment recognizes the right to the assistance of counsel because it envisions counsel's playing a role that is critical to the ability of the adversarial system to reach just results"); United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 656 (1984) ("Thus, the adversarial process protected by the Sixth Amendment requires that the accused have 'counsel acting in the role of an advocate' ") (quoting Anders, supra, at 743).
II
We have not held the details of Anders to be exclusive, but it does make sense to read the case as exemplifying what substantial equality requires on behalf of indigent appellants entitled to an advocate's review and to reasonable certainty that arguable issues will be briefed on their merits. With Anders thus as a benchmark, California's Wende procedure fails to measure up. Its primary failing is in permitting counsel to refrain as a matter of course from mentioning possibly arguable issues in a no-merit brief; its second deficiency is a correlative of the first, in obliging an appellate court to search the record for arguable issues without benefit of an issue-spotting, no-merit brief to review. See 25 Cal. 3d, at 440-442, 600 P. 2d, at 1074-1075.
Although Wende assumes that counsel will act as an advocate, see id., at 441-442, 600 P. 2d, at 1075, it fails to assure, or even promote, the partisan attention that the Constitution requires. While the lawyer must summarize the procedural and factual history of the case with citations to the record, nothing in the Wende scheme requires counsel to show affirmatively, subject to evaluation, that he has made the committed search for issues and the advocate's assessment of their merits that go to the heart of appellate representation in our adversary system. It begs the question to say that "[c]ounsel's inability to find any arguable issues may readily be inferred from his failure to raise any," id., at 442, 600 P. 2d, at 1075, and it misses the point to argue that the
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