Am I entitled to free legal representation on appeal if I was found guilty at trial?
Yes. Douglas v. California, as mentioned above.
Then why the proliferation of “jailhouse lawyers”? If my appeal can be handled by a professional for free, why would an amateur with access to a law library do it? Are jailhouse lawyers mostly mythical or a TV trope? Is there a bright line where the legal system says, “You’re on your own now”?
Sorry for all of the questions. I’m just ignorant; not trying to be obtuse.
Not at all – I am happy to clear things up.
In the legal system, there are two kinds of actions which get lumped under ‘appeals’ when reported by the news media, but are fundamentally different. They are direct and collateral attacks on the conviction.
The direct appeal is always[sup]*[/sup] a matter of right. That is, every state gives you the right to ask a court above the trial court to review your conviction for error. This is basically a direct attack against your conviction. You are obligated to raise every issue you know about in this procedure: perhaps you want to claim that the judge improperly admitted evidence against you, or failed to grant a mistrial after the prosecutor commented on your failure to testify, or even that the prosecution simply failed to prove each and every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
There is also an indirect path to attack. If you’ve been convicted in a state criminal proceeding, had your appeal as of right, and you’re still locked up, you might use the writ of habeas corpus to say to a federal court: this state has me locked up, in violation of the guarantees of the federal constitution! Here you might raise claims that there was some fundamental unfairness about the way you were tried and convicted, something so unfair that it violates the basic due process guarantees of the constitution.
As a general principle, the constitution does not require that you be given free counsel for these kinds of collateral, indirect attacks of your conviction, especially for multiple, sequential theories of why your conviction was so unfair.
“Jailhouse lawyers” also do a brisk business in motions for sentence modification, and lawsuits that relate to the confinement conditions rather than the original charges.