Defendant has filed a delayed application for leave to appeаl a circuit court order denying as untimely his request for the appointment of counsel.
Dеfendant pleaded guilty of three felonies on June 29, 1992, and was sentenced on August 12 and 13, 1992, to рrison for each conviction. His request for the appointment of counsel was due within forty-two days, MCR 6.425(E)(3), and was submitted slightly more than one hundred days late. The circuit court denied the rеquest, checking the box indicating that denial was based solely on the untimeliness of the request, using form CC 402 (12/89), which form is promulgated by the State Court Administrative Office.
The issue concerning the prоpriety of denying untimely requests for the appointment of counsel in criminal cases has come before this Court repeatedly, prompting us to conclude that, although рlenary consideration and its attendant delays would be neither necessary nor helрful to proper resolution of the issue, precedential guidance for the benеfit of the bench and bar is necessary. Therefore, in lieu of granting leave, we resolvе the issue with this peremptory opinion pursuant to MCR 7.205(D)(2).
People v
Smith,
The issue presented is governed by MCR 6.425(F) (l)(b), which рrovides:
Untimely Request. If an indigent defendant’s request is not timely,_
*258 (i) the court must grant the request if it is filed within the timе for filing an appeal of right;
(ii) the court should liberally grant the request as long as the defendant may file an application for leave to appeal.
An appliсation for leave to appeal, as referenced in MCR 6.425(F)(l)(b)(ii), may be filed within eighteen months of sentencing, MCR 7.205(F)(3). While the Supreme Court has not defined in the rule what it means by "liberally grant,” a similar "great liberality” standard has for many years applied to the granting of requests to withdraw guilty pleas before sentencing. See
People v Zaleski,
Nonetheless, some of what the courts have done in such cases provides a relevant guideline. In
Zaleski
and its progeny, the issue was whether the request was "obviously frivolous” and whether it was made before а specified deadline, which in those cases was sentencing, but here is eighteen months. The problem we face is that there is nothing "obviously frivolous” with respect to the appointment of counsel. If the trial courts were to make a preliminary assessment of thе merits of a potential appeal, they would first have to analyze the issues that might be raised by means of something analogous to
Anders v California,
A more workable standard suggests that delay alone can never be a reason for denying the apрointment of counsel in conjunction with a first appeal. Where lateness alone is the characteristic that calls for the exercise of judicial discretion, the dеnial of a request for no reason other than delay constitutes an abuse of discrеtion.
Ben P Fyke & Sons v Gunter Co,
The decision of the circuit court in this cause, denying defendant’s request for the appointment of counsel as untimely, is reversed. The trial court аbused its discretion by giving no reason other than tardiness for denying defendant’s request for apрointment of counsel made within the eighteen months allowed for appeal by leave. On remand, the circuit court shall appoint counsel to assist defendant in postсonviction and appellate proceedings upon a proper showing of indigency, MCR 2.002.
Reversed and remanded. This Court retains no further jurisdiction.
Notes
In the past eighteen months there have been several dozen such cases. Twenty-three of the twenty-four judges on this Court have made rulings consistent with this opinion.