Title: Belden v. Lampert

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

GARY LEE BELDEN v. ROBERT O. LAMPERT, Director, Wyoming Department of Corrections, in his person as Director of Wyoming Out of State Prisoners2011 WY 83Case Number: No. S-10-0237Decided: 05/24/2011NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third. Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002, of any typographical or other formal errors so correction may be made before final publication in the permanent volume.
APRIL 
TERM, A.D. 2011

GARY LEE 
BELDEN,

Appellant 
(Plaintiff),

 
 
v.

 
 
ROBERT O. LAMPERT, 
Director, Wyoming Department of Corrections, in his person as Director of 
Wyoming Out of State Prisoners,

Appellee 
(Defendant).

 
 
Appeal 
from the District Court of Goshen County

The 
Honorable Keith G. Kautz, Judge

 
Representing 
Appellant:

Gary Lee Belden, pro 
se.

 
 
Representing 
Appellee:

Bruce A. Salzburg, 
Attorney General; John W. Renneisen, Deputy Attorney General; Misha Westby, 
Senior Assistant Attorney General.

 
 
 
 
Before KITE, C.J., 
and GOLDEN, HILL, VOIGT, and BURKE, JJ.

 
 
BURKE, 
Justice.

 
 

[¶1]        
Appellant, 
Gary Lee Belden, acting pro se, filed 
an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending he was denied his constitutional 
right of access to the courts because he did not have adequate access to Wyoming 
legal research materials in a Nevada state correctional facility.  Appellant challenges the district 
court's dismissal of his suit based on a failure to state a claim.  We affirm.

 
 
ISSUES

 
 

[¶2]      
Appellant raises the 
following issues:

 
 

1.    
Whether Appellant's 
Complaint set forth facts sufficient to support the allegation that inadequate 
access to legal research materials at a Nevada prison law library caused an 
actual injury.

 
 

2.    
Whether Appellant's 
transfer to a different corrections facility five days prior to the hearing on 
Appellee's Motion to Dismiss prejudiced Appellant's ability to represent himself 
at the hearing. 

 
 
FACTS

 
 

[¶3]        
Appellant was 
convicted of first-degree sexual assault and first-degree murder on October 17, 
2000, and was sentenced to life in prison.  
He appealed his convictions, which were upheld by this Court on July 31, 
2003, in Belden v. State, 2003 WY 89, 73 P.3d 1041 (Wyo. 2003).  Appellant subsequently filed a Petition 
for Writ of Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, which was denied in 
Belden v. Wyoming, 540 U.S. 1165, 124 S. Ct. 1179, 157 L. Ed. 2d 1212 (2004).  Appellant then filed a Petition for Writ 
of Habeas Corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming 
on July 19, 2004.  The District 
Court denied the petition, and that decision was upheld by the Tenth Circuit 
Court of Appeals in Belden v. Wyo. Dep't 
of Corr., 251 Fed. Appx. 512 (10th Cir. 2007).  Appellant also filed three petitions in 
this Court seeking relief from his convictions, including a Petition for Writ of 
Habeas Corpus filed on October 30, 2008, a Petition for Writ of Certiorari filed 
on August 12, 2009, and an additional Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus filed 
on October 14, 2009.  Those 
petitions were also denied.

 
 

[¶4]        
On 
April 28, 2010, Appellant filed this action in the Goshen County District Court, 
claiming a denial of his constitutional right of access to the courts.  More specifically, Appellant claimed he 
was denied "meaningful access to [the] Wyo[ming] state law library."  According to Appellant's Complaint, 
shortly after his convictions, he was transferred to the High Desert State 
Prison in Indian Springs, Nevada.  Appellant alleged that the law library at 
the Nevada facility was inadequate because materials on Wyoming law were only 
available through one LexisNexis computer disc and an "exact cite paging 
system," in which materials could only be retrieved by identifying precise case 
names and citations.  Appellant 
further alleged that the personnel at the Nevada facility were not trained in 
Wyoming law.  He asserted that the 
alleged inadequacies of the law library impeded his ability to comply with "time 
barriers in state court."  Appellant 
also acknowledged in his Complaint that he was represented by a court-appointed 
attorney in the proceedings relating to his federal habeas petition.  

 
 

[¶5]        
In response to 
Appellant's Complaint, Appellee filed a Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a 
claim upon which relief could be granted.  
Appellee claimed that Appellant had failed to allege an actual injury and 
had failed to exhaust administrative remedies.  The district court granted the Motion to 
Dismiss, finding that Appellant had failed to allege facts sufficient to support 
a finding of actual injury as required by law.  Appellant challenges the decision of the 
district court.

 
 
STANDARD OF 
REVIEW

 
 

[¶6]        
We review the 
district court's grant of a motion to dismiss using the following 
standard:

 
 
            
When reviewing W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss, we accept the facts 
stated in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the 
plaintiff.  We will sustain such a 
dismissal when it is certain from the face of the complaint that the plaintiff 
cannot assert any fact which would entitle him to relief.  

Cramer v. Powder River Coal, LLC, 2009 
WY 45, ¶ 35, 204 P.3d 974, 983 (Wyo. 2009).

 
 
DISCUSSION

 
 

[¶7]        
A plaintiff may have 
a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for certain violations of his or her 
constitutional rights.  Section 1983 
provides in relevant part:

 
 
            
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, 
custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, 
subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other 
person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, 
privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable 
to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper 
proceeding for redress . . . .

 
 
It is 
well-established that inmates have a constitutional right of meaningful access 
to the courts.  Bounds v. 
Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 822, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1495, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72 (1977).  The right is grounded in the Due Process 
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the First Amendment right to petition the 
government for redress of grievances.  Bieregu v. Reno, 59 F.3d 1445, 1453-54 (3d Cir. 
1995).  In Bounds, the Supreme Court held that 
"the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison 
authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal 
papers by providing prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance 
from persons trained in the law."  
430 U.S.  at 828, 97 S. Ct.  at 1498. 

 
 

[¶8]        
In Lewis v. 
Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 116 S. Ct. 2174, 135 L. Ed. 2d 606 (1996), the Supreme 
Court revisited the holding in Bounds, and clarified that an inmate 
alleging a denial of the right of access to the courts must demonstrate an 
"actual injury."  Lewis, 518 U.S.  at 351, 116 S. Ct.  at 
2180.  The Court stated that this 
requirement "derives ultimately from the doctrine of standing, a constitutional 
principle that prevents courts of law from undertaking tasks assigned to the 
political branches."  Id. at 349, 116 S. Ct.  at 2179.  The Court noted that "prison law libraries and 
legal assistance programs are not ends in themselves, but only the means for 
ensuring a reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed 
violations of fundamental constitutional rights to the courts.'" Id. at 351, 116 S. Ct.  at 2180 (quoting 
Bounds, 430 U.S.  at 825, 97 S.Ct. at 
1496).  Further, the Court 
explained that in order to show actual injury, an inmate must demonstrate that 
alleged shortcomings in the prison library hindered efforts to pursue a legal 
claim:

 
 
            
Because Bounds did not create 
an abstract, freestanding right to a law library or legal assistance, an inmate 
cannot establish relevant actual injury simply by establishing that his prison's 
law library or legal assistance program is subpar in some theoretical sense. 
 That would be the precise analog of 
the healthy inmate claiming constitutional violation because of the inadequacy 
of the prison infirmary.  Insofar as 
the right vindicated by Bounds is 
concerned, "meaningful access to the courts is the touchstone," [Bounds, 430 U.S.] at 823[, 97 S. Ct.  at 
1495] (internal quotation marks omitted), and the inmate therefore must go one 
step further and demonstrate that the alleged shortcomings in the library or 
legal assistance program hindered his efforts to pursue a legal claim.  He might show, for example, that a 
complaint he prepared was dismissed for failure to satisfy some technical 
requirement which, because of deficiencies in the prison's legal assistance 
facilities, he could not have known.  Or that he had suffered arguably 
actionable harm that he wished to bring before the courts, but was so stymied by 
inadequacies of the law library that he was unable even to file a 
complaint.            

Lewis, 
518 U.S.  at 351, 116 S. Ct.  at 2180.

 
 

[¶9]        
Appellant's Complaint 
states that the alleged inadequacies of the Nevada prison library impeded his 
ability to assert a claim within "time barriers in state court."   Construing the Complaint liberally, 
Appellant asserts that the alleged inadequacies of the Nevada prison library 
prevented him from filing a petition for post-conviction relief within the 
applicable statute of limitations.  A petition for post-conviction relief may 
be filed by a prisoner who asserts that "in the proceedings which resulted in 
his conviction there was a substantial denial of his rights under the 
constitution of the United States or of the state of Wyoming . . . ."   Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-14-101(b) 
(LexisNexis 2009).  Appellant's 
alleged injury stems from the fact that petitions for post-conviction relief 
must be filed within five years after a judgment of conviction is entered.  Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-14-103(d)1; Phillips v. Ferguson, 182 F.3d 769, 771 (10th Cir. 
1999).  Appellant was 
convicted in 2000 and, consequently, can no longer file a petition for 
post-conviction relief in Wyoming state courts.  Taylor v. State, 2003 WY 97, ¶ 10, 74 P.3d 1236, 1239 (Wyo. 
2003). 

 
 

[¶10]     
Although 
it is clear that the statute of limitations for post-conviction relief has long 
since expired, Appellant's Complaint gives absolutely no indication that 
Appellant had a claim for post-conviction relief at any time.  Appellant did not allege any basis upon 
which a petition for post-conviction relief could have been filed, and he did 
not allege any facts to indicate the existence of a viable claim for 
post-conviction relief.  We note that Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-14-103(a) bars claims 
that could have been raised in a direct appeal, as well as claims that were 
decided on the merits or on procedural grounds "in any previous proceeding which 
has become final."  Without any 
facts to indicate that Appellant could have filed a viable petition for 
post-conviction relief, we cannot determine that Appellant has been injured by 
the expiration of the applicable statute of limitations.  Accordingly, we find that the facts set forth in Appellant's Complaint, 
when viewed in the light most favorable to him, do not allege an actual 
injury.  Furthermore, 
Appellant was able to file at least five petitions seeking relief from his 
conviction while he was an inmate at the Nevada state prison, and he was represented by court-appointed counsel in 
at least one of those actions.  Those petitions were reviewed at length 
and were denied on the merits.  
Appellant's ability to conduct this volume of legal activity provides 
further indication that he retained meaningful access to the courts.  See Rauso v. Zimmerman, No. 
3:97-CV-1841, 2006 WL 3717785, at *5 (M.D.Pa. Dec. 14, 
2006).

 
 

[¶11]     
Appellant's second 
issue concerns his transfer to a different corrections facility shortly before 
the hearing on the Motion to Dismiss.  Because this issue is raised for the 
first time on appeal, we do not address it.  As we have repeatedly 
stated,

 
 
            
We strongly adhere to the rule forbidding us to "consider for the first 
time on appeal issues that were neither raised in, nor argued to, the trial 
court," except for those issues which are jurisdictional or are fundamental in 
nature.  [Oatts] v. Jorgenson, 821 P.2d 108, 111 (Wyo. 
1991).  We follow this rule because "it is unfair to reverse a ruling of a 
trial court for reasons that were not presented to it, whether it be legal 
theories or issues never formally raised in the pleadings nor argued to the 
trial court."    

Erwin 
v. State, 
2010 WY 117, ¶ 15, 237 P.3d 409, 414 (Wyo. 2010) (quoting Hronek v. Saint Joseph's Children's 
Home, 866 P.2d 1305, 1309 (Wyo. 1994)).  

[¶12]     
Affirmed.

 
 
FOOTNOTES

 
 

1Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 
7-14-103 reads, in its entirety, as follows:

 
 
(a) A claim 
under this act is procedurally barred and no court has jurisdiction to decide 
the claim if the claim:          

 
 
(i) Could have 
been raised but was not raised in a direct appeal from the proceeding which 
resulted in the petitioner's conviction;        
(ii) Was not raised in the original or an amendment to the 
original petition under this act; or   
(iii) Was decided on its merits or on procedural grounds in 
any previous proceeding which has become final.            

(b) Notwithstanding 
paragraph (a)(i) of this section, a court may hear a petition if:            

(i) The 
petitioner sets forth facts supported by affidavits or other credible evidence 
which was not known or reasonably available to him at the time of a direct 
appeal; or            
(ii) The court makes a finding that the petitioner was 
denied constitutionally effective assistance of counsel on his direct appeal. 
This finding may be reviewed by the supreme court together with any further 
action of the district court taken on the petition.            

(c) This act 
does not apply to claims of error or denial of rights in any proceeding:          

(i) For the 
revocation of probation or parole;       
(ii) Provided by statute or court rule for new trial, 
sentence reduction, sentence correction or other post-verdict motion.  

(d) No 
petition under this act shall be allowed if filed more than five (5) years after 
the judgment of conviction was entered.