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Criminal Appeals Procedure Overview
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Appeals are not like trials. Appellate court judges do not decide questions of guilt or innocence. Instead, the focus of an appeal is on whether the trial was fairly conducted. No new evidence is taken in an appeal. The appellate court considers only the record of the proceedings that were conducted in the trial court.
In order to fully understand how appeals are decided, it is important to understand the concept of appellate standards of review. A review standard is the rule which specifies how the appellate court is to evaluate a legal decision made by the trial judge. Depending upon the type of decision under review, the appellate court may apply an abuse of discretion standard, substantial evidence standard, a de novo review standard, or some other standard. Knowing which standard of review applies is important when evaluating what the chances are of successfully convincing the appellate court that the trial judge made an error.
There are also issues of harmless error. Not every mistake made by a trial judge will lead to a reversal of the conviction. If the appellate court believes that the trial outcome would have been the same even if the error had never been committed, then the challenged conviction will not be set aside. Different legal decisions are governed by different harmless error standards, and some harmless error standards are stricter than others.
Collateral attack proceedings are closely related to appeals. In Washington the most common form of a collateral attack proceeding is a personal restraint petition (or a "PRP"), which is filed in an appellate court. Another form of a collateral attack is a motion for relief from judgment which is filed in the trial court. Unlike direct appeals, collateral attack petitions may contain claims of newly discovered evidence and can present such evidence to the appellate court. If a claim is federal in nature, and has been properly presented to all available state courts, then that claim may be further presented to a federal court in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
Collateral attack petitions are governed by different rules. Some claims can only be raised in a collateral attack proceeding. Other claims can be raised in either an appeal or in a collateral attack petition. Claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, for example, are generally best raised in a collateral attack petition, but they can also be raised in a direct appeal. There are time limits that apply to the filing of collateral attack petitions, and there are often difficult decisions to make as to whether to file a collateral attack petition simultaneously with an appeal, or whether to wait and see whether a direct appeal will be successful before filing a collateral attack petition.
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Criminal
Appeals Procedure
 Overview
Stages
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"The criminal justice system is
not perfect by any means. Mistakes are made
and innocent people are wrongfully convicted.
Trial judges make serious errors, and
prosecutors and police sometimes engage in unfair
and illegal conduct in a misguided zealous effort
to punish the bad guy.”
— James Lobsenz
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