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02/10/2010 "See News Release 012 for any Concurrences and/or Dissents."

SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA

No. 09-KO-1019 STATE OF LOUISIANA v. TEDDY CHESTER

On Writ of Certiorari to the 24th Judicial District Court

PER CURIAM: Granted in part; case remanded. In his original application to this Court, relator sought review of the district court's order denying his motion to discharge pro bono and appointed counsel for more diligent counsel to pursue post-conviction proceedings initiated in 2001 after this Court affirmed his conviction for first degree murder and sentence of death. State v. Chester, 97-2790 (La. 12/1/98), 724 So.2d 1276. We find no error in that ruling insofar as the court applied settled jurisprudence that an indigent defendant does not have the right to have a particular attorney appointed to represent him. State v. Harper, 381 So.2d 468, 470 (La. 1980); State v. Rideau, 278 So.2d 100, 103 (La. 1973). However, relator subsequently filed in this Court a motion to waive counsel altogether and to represent himself during post-conviction proceedings in the district court. Relator did not file his motion in the district court and this Court is not in a position to rule on it in the first instance. We note that in principle, while an indigent

inmate on death row has a statutory right to appointed counsel to pursue postconviction relief "if appropriate," La.R.S. 15:178, he may knowingly and intelligently waive that purely statutory right, just as he may waive statutory post-conviction remedies altogether. Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990); cf. Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U.S. 1, 10-11, 109 S.Ct. 2765, 2770-71, 106 L.Ed. 1 (1989)("State collateral proceedings are not constitutionally required as an adjunct to the state criminal proceedings and serve a different and more limited purpose than either the trial or appeal. . . . direct appeal is the primary avenue for review of capital cases as well as other sentences [and a state] may quite sensibly decide to concentrate the resources it devotes to providing attorneys for capital defendants at the trial and appellate states of a capital proceeding."); Cf. 28 U.S.C.

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