ALBANY – Tking what it acknowledged to be a hard line on the need for “orderly procedure,” the state Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that a defendant facing a murder conviction cannot raise on direct appeal a right-to-counsel claim.

A divided 4-3 Court decided in People v. McLean, 113, that an “adequate record” must be present for it to consider on direct appeal an otherwise unpreserved right-to-counsel claim under the state Constitution.