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OCTOBER TERM, 2005
9
Per Curiam
KANE, WARDEN v. GARCIA ESPITIA on petition for writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit No. 04–1538. Decided October 31, 2005 Respondent, a pro se criminal defendant, received no law library access while in jail before trial and only about four hours of access during trial. The California courts rejected his claim that such restricted access vio lated the Sixth Amendment. The Federal District Court subsequently denied him habeas relief, but the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that his lack of pretrial access to law books violated his constitutional right to self-representation as established in Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806. Held: The Ninth Circuit erred in holding, based on Faretta, that a viola tion of a law library access right is a basis for federal habeas relief. A necessary condition for such relief is that the state-court decision be “contrary to, or involv[e] an unreasonable application of, clearly es tablished Federal law, as determined by” this Court. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). While Faretta establishes a Sixth Amendment right to self-representation, it does not “clearly establis[h]” a law library access right. Certiorari granted; 113 Fed. Appx. 802, reversed and remanded.
Per Curiam. Respondent Garcia Espitia, a criminal defendant who chose to proceed pro se, was convicted in California state court of carjacking and other offenses. He had received no law library access while in jail before trial—despite his re peated requests and court orders to the contrary—and only about four hours of access during trial, just before closing arguments. (Of course, he had declined, as was his right, to be represented by a lawyer with unlimited access to legal materials.) The California courts rejected his argument that his restricted library access violated his Sixth Amend ment rights. Once his sentence became final, he petitioned in Federal District Court for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2254. The District Court denied relief, but the
