Halbert v. Michigan

Halbert v. Michigan, 545 U.S. 605 (2005), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Michigan law (Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 770.3a (West 2000)), which denied public counsel for defendants appealing a conviction on a plea, violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a majority opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court affirmed that "a State is required to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant's first-tier appeal as of right."