Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-03064/USCOURTS-ca8-14-03064-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gregory Houston Holt
Appellant
Michelle Howard
Appellee
State of Arkansas
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-3064

___________________________

Gregory Houston Holt

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Michelle Howard, Public Information Officer, Little Rock Police Department, in

her Official Capacity Only; State of Arkansas

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock

____________

 Submitted: September 24, 2015

 Filed: November 27, 2015

____________

Before MURPHY, MELLOY, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

____________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Gregory Holt, an incarcerated felon, brought this case against the state of

Arkansas and Michelle Howard, an employee of the Little Rock Police Department,

alleging that the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act violates the equal protection

and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Howard had denied Holt's

pro se request for documents about an individual he had assaulted because the Act

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only permits an incarcerated felon to request information of public record through an

attorney. The district court concluded that the Act was constitutional and granted

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summary judgment to the defendants. Holt appeals, and we affirm.

In 2009 Holt assaulted C.T., and the state charged him with aggravated

residential burglary and first degree domestic battery. Holt was tried in Pulaski

County Circuit Court, C.T. testified against him, and the jury convicted him of two

felonies on June 3, 2010. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the burglary

conviction and received a concurrent forty years sentence on the domestic battery

conviction. Holt has unsuccessfully challenged his convictions and sentencesin both

state and federal courts. 

On June 28, 2012 Holt sent a letter to Howard, the public information officer

in the Little Rock Police Department. In his letter Holt requested "[p]ursuant to the

Arkansas Freedom of Information Act" records "pertaining to [C.T.] since June 3,

2010 as well as any records pertaining to [C.T.'s presumptive Little Rock address]

since June 3, 2010." Howard denied Holt's request on July 12, 2012. In her denial

letter Howard cited a restriction in the statute which prevents pro se incarcerated

felons from accessing documents under the Act. The relevant statutory provision

states that:

accessto inspect and copy public records shall be denied to: (i) A person

who at the time of the request has pleaded guilty to or been found guilty

of a felony and is incarcerated in a correctional facility; and (ii) The

representative of a person under subdivision (a)(1)(B)(i) of this section

unless the representative is the person's attorney who is requesting

information that is subject to disclosure under this section. 

Ark. Code Ann. § 25-19-105(a)(1)(B). 

The Honorable D.P. Marshall, Jr., United States DistrictJudge for the Eastern 1

District of Arkansas.

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Holt filed this action against Howard and the state of Arkansas alleging that the

Act's exclusion of pro se incarcerated felons denies equal protection of the law to this

category of persons and denies them access to legitimate legal documents they may

need for post conviction appeals. With respect to his equal protection claim, Holt

alleges that the Act is unconstitutional because it has no rational basis and only seeks

to prohibit indigent prisoners from post conviction redress. In respect to his due

process claim, Holt alleges that as a result of the denial of his records request he "was

unable to access and therefore present what he believed was new evidence." 

Although the court had ordered the parties to complete discovery by January 24,

2014, Holt did not request discovery from either defendant by that date. 

The state and Howard filed motions for summary judgment which the district

court granted. The court determined that Holt had standing to pursue his claims, but

concluded that the challenged provision was constitutional under the equal protection

and due process clauses. Holt subsequently filed three pro se post judgment motions

for relief. He argued that the court should provide him with the opportunity to take

additional discovery and offer evidence to refute the defendants' proffered rational

bases for the Act. The court denied all three motions. Holt appeals the underlying

summary judgment order and the orders denying his motions for relief. 

"We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing

the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and giving that party the

benefit of all reasonable inferencesthat can be drawn from the record." Minn. ex rel.

N. Pac. Ctr., Inc. v. BNSF Ry. Co., 686 F.3d 567, 571 (8th Cir. 2012). Summary

judgment is appropriate when no genuine dispute exists "as to any material fact and

the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We

"may affirm the judgment on any basis supported by the record." Hohn v. BNSF Ry.

Co., 707 F.3d 995, 1000 (8th Cir. 2013). 

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Holt contendsthat permitting only those incarcerated felons who have counsel

to access information under the Act violates the equal protection clause. The

Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from denying "any person within its

jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. The

Supreme Court has however long held that a classification that does not involve

fundamental rights or suspect classes does not violate the equal protection clause "if

there is a rational relationship between the disparity of treatment and some legitimate

governmental purpose." Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 319–20 (1993). Rational basis

review does not require proof ofthe legislature's actual motivation, but only thatsome

rational basis exists for the law. See City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Ctr.,

473 U.S. 432, 448 (1985). Because the statute's classification is presumed

constitutional, Holt has the burden of negating every conceivable basis which might

support it. See Heller, 509 U.S. at 320. 

The district court did not err in granting summary judgment because the Act's

limitation on those who many benefit from the law is rationally related to at least two

legitimate government purposes. First, the Act's classification isrationally related to

the prevention of unlawful use of the statute because attorneys are prohibited from

assisting clients in criminal or fraudulent enterprises. Arkansas Rule of Professional

Conduct 1.2(d) states that "[a] lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist

a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent." Rule 1.2(d)

applies to the full scope of attorney representation, including requesting records on

behalf of clients. The ethical rules thus prohibit an attorney from helping a client

request records for the purpose of harassing or threatening a witness or victim. 

Concern about inmates harassing others through record requests is not a vague

undifferentiated fear, contrary to Holt's contention. The safety of othersis a "factor[]

which [is] properly cognizable" by a legislative body when determining the limits of

a state public records law. See City of Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 448. 

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The Act's classification is also rationally related to conserving government

resources. Requiring incarcerated felons to make record requests through counsel

reduces the number of record requests made to state and local agencies. Relying on

this rationale in Giarratano v. Johnson, the Fourth Circuit reasoned that Virginia

"conserve[d] state resources and prevent[ed] frivolous requests" by excluding all

prisoners from utilizing the state's freedom of information statute. See 521 F.3d 298,

305 (4th Cir. 2008). Holt's arguments about the breadth of the Act's classifications

are meritless. Whether all or some prisoners are excluded, the overall number of

requests requiring a response decreases. The rational basis test only requires a

legislature to draw a rational line to achieve the government purposes sought, not a

"perfect line." See Armour v. City of Indianapolis, Ind., 132 S. Ct. 2073, 2083

(2012). For the reasons discussed above, the Arkansas legislature's classification is

rational even if imperfect. We thus conclude that the district court properly granted

summary judgment on Holt's equal protection claim. 

Holt also argues that the Act violates his due process right to access the courts

because it prevents him from accessing new evidence. To state an access to the

courts claim, "a prisoner must establish [that] the state has not provided an

opportunity to litigate a claim challenging the prisoner's sentence or conditions of

confinement in a court of law, which resulted in actual injury, that is, the hindrance

of a nonfrivolous and arguably meritorious underlying legal claim." Williams v.

Hobbs, 658 F.3d 842, 851–52 (8th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Holt's due process claim fails because he has not shown that he will suffer an

actual injury as a result of the Act's exclusion. See id. at 852. Holt has not been

denied access to the courts in the past, and he has fully litigated challenges to his

convictions and sentencesin both state and federal courts. For any future challenges,

Holt may obtain the records he seeks by filing a discovery motion with a habeas

petition. Rule 6 of the rules governing § 2254 cases permits petitioners to conduct

discovery if they show good cause. This rule provides a safety valve for Holt to

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access documents and the courts if he has a credible claim, such as a nonfrivolous

actual innocence claim under Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995). To the extent that

Holt contends he has a right to access police department documents without meeting

the Rule 6 requirements, the Supreme Court has pointed out that the right to access

the courts does not include the right to "litigate effectively once in court." See Lewis

v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 354 (1996) (emphasis original). Because of the rights

available to him through a habeas petition, Holt suffers no actual injury from the Act

as a matter of law. The district court did not err in granting summary judgment.

Holt also appeals the denial of his three Rule 60(b)(6) motions for relief from

the judgment, which are subject to an abuse of discretion test. See Noah v. Bond

Cold Storage, 408 F.3d 1043, 1045 (8th Cir. 2005). Under Rule 60(b)(6), a district

court may grant relief from a judgment for any reason that justifies relief. In these

motions Holt reasserted arguments raised in his summary judgment brief and argued

that he was entitled to further discovery to disprove the proffered rational bases for

the Act's classification. As explained above, the district court properly granted

summary judgment to the defendants on Holt's equal protection and due process

claims. The district court also did not abuse its discretion by denying Holt's request

for additional discovery because he failed to utilize the procedures available to him

while discovery was open, and "[i]nadequate discovery cannot be a shield against

summary judgment without a showing of a meritorious opposition." See Pony

Comput., Inc. v. Equus Comput. Sys. of Mo., Inc., 162 F.3d 991, 996 (8th Cir. 1998). 

We conclude that the district court did not err by granting summary judgment

to the defendants because the Act does not violate the equal protection or due process

clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. We also conclude that the district court did

not abuse its discretion in denying Holt's Rule 60(b) motions because his claims

failed on the merits and he was not entitled to additional discovery. The judgments

of the district court are affirmed. 

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