Court Opinion

ID: 9731147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:35:37.972967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:14.047461
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE CRAVEN, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree with the majority that these two cases must be remanded but part company on what should be done after remand with regard to prisoners’ rights and particularly the right to counsel. Remand under the majority’s limits will not vindicate any constitutional rights of prisoners and will in fact only frustrate those rights by the mandated judicial wheel-spinning. Among litigants generally, prisoners have unique and monumental legal problems resulting from their incarceration. Prisoners face special difficulties in securing representation by counsel; cut off from many of the usual sources of legal aid because of the location of prisons in largely rural areas and because they are unable to go looking for attorneys, prisoners must rely on themselves or on jailhouse lawyers to do research, to draft pleadings, and to conduct a case. The fact of incarceration spawns a multitude of constitutional claims against the government in its role as prison-keeper, for incarceration transforms mundane legal disputes into questions regarding the permissible extent of the State’s control over individuals. As the Supreme Court has observed: “For state prisoners, eating, sleeping, dressing, washing, working, and playing are all done under the watchful eye of the State, and so the possibilities for litigation under the Fourteenth Amendment are boundless. What for a private citizen would be a dispute with his landlord, with his employer, with his tailor, with his neighbor, or with his banker becomes, for the prisoner, a dispute with the State.” Preiser v. Rodriguez (1973), 411 U.S. 475, 492, 36 L. Ed. 2d 439, 451, 93 S. Ct. 1827, 1837. By definition no other group in society is so lacking in freedom; prisoners pass each controlled day deprived of many liberties that persons on the outside take for granted: “Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system.” (Price v. Johnston (1948), 334 U.S. 266, 285, 92 L. Ed. 1356, 1369, 68 S. Ct. 1049, 1060.) Yet persons do not lose all their constitutional rights by reason of incarceration. (Wolff v. McDonnell (1974), 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 950-51, 94 S. Ct. 2963, 2974, listing religious freedom, freedom from racial discrimination, and the rights of due process and access as retained by prisoners; Saunders v. Packet (E.D. Pa. 1977), 436 F. Supp. 618, 622.) The State may limit the exercise of rights when necessary to preserve order in the prison (e.g., Pell v. Procunier (1974), 417 U.S. 817, 41 L. Ed. 2d 495, 94 S. Ct. 2800, upholding a prison regulation that prohibited journalists from interviewing prisoners face-to-face; Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc. (1977), 433 U.S. 119, 53 L. Ed. 2d 629, 97 S. Ct. 2532, upholding restrictions on prisoners’ associational rights), but prisoners retain rights to the extent that the rights do not interfere with the needs of incarceration. Although courts are generally loathe to interfere in the details of prison administration — a “hands-off” approach characterizes the customary judicial attitude toward prison authority — the courts, both State and Federal, will inject themselves into the business of incarceration when prison administrators violate or threaten prisoners’ constitutional rights. (Procunier v. Martinez (1974), 416 U.S. 396, 405-06,40 L. Ed. 2d 224,236, 94 S. Ct. 1800, 1807-08.) Ensuring access to the courts is one area where the judicial system has been notably active in reviewing prison procedures. In a line of cases beginning with Ex parte Hull (1941), 312 U.S. 546, 85 L. Ed. 1034, 61 S. Ct. 640, the Supreme Court has gradually broadened the meaning of prisoners’ right of access to the courts. Hull invalidated a prison regulation that required prisoners to submit their habeas corpus petitions to prison authorities, who in their discretion could refuse to file them in court. In Johnson v. Avery (1969), 393 U.S. 483, 21 L. Ed. 2d 718, 89 S. Ct. 747, the court held that in the absence of alternative means of legal assistance prisons could not prohibit jailhouse lawyers from helping other inmates draft habeas corpus petitions. Although concerned with the effect of the rule against inmate assistance on the rights of illiterate inmates (393 U.S. 483, 487, 21 L. Ed. 2d 718, 722, 89 S. Ct. 747, 749-50), the court based its decision on the right of access to present petitions rather than on equal protection. In Younger v. Gilmore (1971), 404 U.S. 15, 30 L. Ed. 2d 142, 92 S. Ct. 250, the court relied on Avery to affirm, in a per curiam decision, Gilmore v. Lynch (N.D. Cal. 1970), 319 F. Supp. 105. The district court had ordered the department of corrections in California to expand its prison law libraries or provide other means of legal assistance. Both the right of access and equal protection formed the basis for the decision. (319 F. Supp. 105, 111.) With the Supreme Court’s affirmance, prison authorities not only had to cease interfering with prisoners’ access but also had to take affirmative steps to provide inmates with access. (Potuto, The Right of Prisoner Access: Does Bounds Have Bounds? 53 Ind. L.J. 207, 210 (1977-78).) Wolff held that the right of access is not limited to prisoners filing habeas petitions; the right extends to section 1983 actions as well. In Bounds v. Smith (1977), 430 U.S. 817, 821, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72, 78, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1494, the court reaffirmed its result in Gilmore, saying, “It is now established beyond doubt that prisoners have a constitutional right of access to the courts.” The court specifically 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. 817, 828, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72, 83, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1498.) Thus, the court was not faced with and did not answer the question whether prisoners are entitled to counsel after the papers have been filed; the “main concern” in Bounds was with prisoners’ preparation of actions, not with legal assistance after the documents have been drafted. 430 U.S. 817, 828 n.17, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72, 83 n.17, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1498 n.17. Ross v. Moffitt (1974), 417 U.S. 600, 41 L. Ed. 2d 341, 94 S. Ct. 2437, held that counsel was not required for criminal defendants seeking discretionary review of their convictions; Bounds found Ross inapplicable because prisoners’ claims concern new causes of action raising questions that have not already been considered. Bounds, 430 U.S. 817, 827, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72, 82, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1497-98. I caution against reading Bounds as presenting prisons with a choice between mutually exclusive alternatives. Such a narrow reading has been criticized and at the least should not be extended to prisoners who have already prepared their claims and are awaiting action by the courts. After the preparation stage, counsel is needed to respond to the opposing party’s motions as well as to provide personal representation in court. Simply put, many courts do not believe that a narrow and parsimonious interpretation of Bounds can satisfy the due process requirements of prisoners litigating the conditions of their confinement. Wetmore v. Fields (W.D. Wis. 1978), 458 F. Supp. 1131, 1142, said: “So radically and massively does government assault individual freedom when it engages in imprisonment that, in my view, the due process clause should be held to require that through the weeks, months, and years, prisoners be afforded abundant and effective means to mount challenges to particular conditions of confinement for resolution by the judicial branch. Without regard to the degree of formal education, intellectual powers, or gifts of expression of a particular prisoner, he or she should be constitutionally entitled to a choice among: adequate assistance from persons trained in the law, direct access to truly adequate law libraries, and the opportunity for assistance from fellow prisoners with legal research and writing.” Wetmore then advised against reading Bounds as presenting a narrow choice, but adopted a narrow reading itself, however, because the relief sought was an interlocutory injunction. Glover v. Johnson (E.D. Mich. 1979), 478 F. Supp. 1075, found adequate a law library at a women’s prison in Michigan but ordered the authorities to permit inmates to assist each other in legal matters, to continue a legal service program, and to establish a legal education program. (478 F. Supp. 1075, 1096-97.) In concluding that the existence of an adequate library would not provide prisoners with meaningful access to the courts, Glover advised against reading Bounds too narrowly and doubted that prisoners “unschooled in the most basic techniques of legal research” would derive much benefit from a library of law books. 478 F. Supp. 1075, 1096. Thibadoux v. LaVallee (W.D. N.Y. 1976), 411 F. Supp. 862, 864, declined to reopen the question of a prisoner’s conviction — other courts and judges had already dismissed a number of habeas corpus petitions in the same case — but recommended that prisoners be provided with appointed counsel: “This case presents an unfortunate example of the difficulties and frustrations experienced by a convicted defendant who does not have reasonable access to legal counsel to assist him in presenting his legal argument to the court. Simply to provide penal institutions with law libraries and the aid of inmate legal clerks is not enough. There must be some opportunity for inmates to have access to counsel who would be able to assess' the validity of the constitutional deprivations which they have suffered in their convictions.” Wade v. Kane (E.D. Pa. 1978), 448 F. Supp. 678, 684, aff'd (3d Cir. 1979), 591 F.2d 1338, also decided that the choice suggested by Bounds does not mean that a prison need provide only a library or in the alternative other forms of assistance; Wade held that even when the prison provides an adequate library, inmates unable to conduct their own research have a right to assistance from other inmates. Avery thus was not affected by Bounds. Books ameliorate but alone do not solve prisoners’ legal problems: “The central question in evaluating whether a law library adequately provides meaningful access to the courts is whether the facility will enable the prisoners to fairly present their complaints to a district court. It is not enough simply to say the books are there, when the plaintiffs contend that they do not have the assistance necessary to use the books properly. All of the circumstances must be evaluated in determining the adequacy of a library, and the district court erred by holding that a prison library without any assistance in its use sufficed to provide access to the courts for all the prisoners detained.” Cruz v. Hauck (5th Cir. 1980), 627 F.2d 710, 720. Thus, the alternatives in Bounds do not independently and alone satisfy the due process right of access; the presence of a law library does not necessarily guarantee every prisoner access to the courts. Cruz continued: “Although Bounds says that either an adequate law library or assistance from persons trained in the law may satisfy the fundamental constitutional right to access to the courts, the fundamental concern is still whether the inmates have meaningful access to the courts. Library books, even if ‘adequate’ in number, cannot provide access to the courts for those persons who do not speak English or who are illiterate. Library-use assistance might solve the problem presented. Perhaps, instead, the need might be met by ‘writ-writers’ in the jail, if sufficient in number, to aid those unable to use the library themselves.” 627 F.2d 710, 721. The handicaps and difficulties usually attending pro se representation are intensified when the litigant is in prison. Incarceration may inhibit discovery, limit the prisoner’s research of the facts and the law, and cause difficulties in scheduling and attending pretrial hearings. (Robbins and Herman, Litigating Without Counsel: Faretta or for Worse, 42 Brooklyn L. Rev. 629, 679 (1976).) For access to be meaningful, then, prisons must provide more than just libraries for prisoners asserting constitutional claims. It is a mistake to read Bounds as a repudiation of the principles announced in cases such as Avery and Wolff. Although the choice given by Bounds to prisons may suggest that choosing one of the options satisfies prisoners’ right of access, Bounds does not hold that Avery and Wolff are no longer good law but instead cites them as examples of the court’s growing recognition of the right and of the manners in which it may be effected. Thus, problems for illiterate or unschooled prisoners are particularly acute if providing only a library is deemed to satisfy the prison’s obligation to make access meaningful. (Note, 26 Kan. L. Rev. 636, 649 (1978).) Books “are worthless to prisoners who lack the reading and writing skills or legal understanding to use them. [Citation.] Access to law books is no substitute for the counseling and drafting that must go into the preparation of litigation. While Bounds addressed itself only to the preparation stage, assistance in court is equally indispensable.” (Turner, When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Suits in the Federal Courts, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 656 n.216 (1979).) Turner recommends that prisons provide inmates with legal assistance in both the preparation and litigation of their actions. (92 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 652.) Providing counsel may actually reduce the number of prisoners’ suits, because frivolous complaints will be weeded out more quickly and attorneys will advise their inmate-clients to exhaust whatever information remedies are available. 92 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 636. The majority argues that the right to appointed counsel is limited to criminal matters and generally inapplicable to civil litigants. Yet the constitutional foundation for the right of access as well as the historical and conceptual grounds of the civil/criminal distinction show that the right to appointed counsel is not exclusively criminal. The right of access has been derived from several constitutional sources, including the first amendment right to petition the government for redress (Hall v. Maryland (D. Md. 1977), 433 F. Supp. 756; Thompson v. Bond (W.D. Mo. 1976), 421 F. Supp. 878) and the sixth amendment (Stover v. Carlson (D. Conn. 1976), 413 F. Supp. 718). The Supreme Court itself has located the right for prisoners as an element of due process: “The right of access to the courts, upon which Avery was premised, is founded in the Due Process Clause and assures that no person will be denied the opportunity to present to the judiciary allegations concerning violations of fundamental constitutional rights.” (Wolff, 418 U.S. 539, 579, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 964, 94 S. Ct. 2963, 2986.) Because the due process clause rather than the sixth amendment provides the source for the right of access, the civil/criminal distinction is irrelevant in limiting the scope of that right. The sixth amendment, unlike the seventh, contains a clause guaranteeing the assistance of counsel. Depriving indigent civil litigants of counsel has been attacked on both historical and conceptual grounds; the sixth amendment’s express recognition of a criminal defendant’s right to retain counsel was a reaction to the then-current English practice of prohibiting certain categories of criminal defendants from appearing in court with counsel. Originally, English felons did not have the right to appear with counsel, although misdemeanants and civil litigants had that right. In 1688 persons charged with treason became entitled to the right to retain counsel, but not until 1836 was this right extended to include all felons. (Powell v. Alabama (1932), 287 U.S. 45, 60, 77 L. Ed. 158, 166, 53 S. Ct. 55, 61; Comment, 66 Colum. L. Rev. 1322, 1327 (1966).) The sixth amendment rejected the English rule; Powell said: “If recognition of the right of a defendant charged with a felony to have the aid of counsel depended upon the existence of a similar right at common law as it existed in England when our Constitution was adopted, there would be great difficulty in maintaining it as necessary to due process.” 287 U.S. 45, 60, 77 L. Ed. 158, 166, 53 S. Ct. 55, 61. Powell decided that the phrase in the sixth amendment referring to the assistance of counsel required that counsel be appointed to represent indigents in capital cases; the court based its decision on due process: “The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law.” (287 U.S. 45, 68-69, 77 L. Ed. 158, 170, 53 S. Ct. 55, 64.) The intricacies of the law thus require the appointment of counsel to represent persons charged with capital offenses. The court went on to state the need for counsel in civil cases: “If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a dfenial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.” (287 U.S. 45, 69, 77 L. Ed. 158, 170-71, 53 S. Ct. 55, 64.) If a person who has retained an attorney cannot get a fair hearing without the presence of his counsel, then the same applies to a prisoner unable to secure counsel in the first place. (See Comment, 76 Yale L.J. 545, 549 (1967).) Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), 372 U.S. 335, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799, 83 S. Ct. 792, required on due process grounds the extension of Powell to criminal defendants generally. These due process concerns point out the conceptual reasons for appointing counsel to represent prisoners in their challenges to the conditions of their confinement. See Payne v. Superior Court (1976), 17 Cal. 3d 908, 553 P.2d 565,132 Cal. Rptr. 405, holding that indigent prisoners sued in civil actions have a right to appointed counsel. In rejecting requests for the appointment of counsel in civil matters, courts have often relied on the civil/criminal distinction and the supposition that only criminal defendants have that right. (E.g., Hubbard v. Montgomery (Ala. 1979), 372 So. 2d 315; Wilson v. Swing (M.D. N.C. 1978), 463 F. Supp. 555.) Yet the distinction is artificial; denominating a proceeding as “civil” rather than “criminal” does not mean that due process and equal protection are inapplicable. (Hudson v. Miller (1979), 119 N.H. 141, 399 A.2d 612.) As Powell made clear in discussing civil litigants’ right to appear with counsel, due process is not confined to criminal cases. See also In re Winship (1970), 397 U.S. 358, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368, 90 S. Ct. 1068; Goldberg v. Kelly (1970), 397 U.S. 254, 25 L. Ed. 2d 287, 90 S. Ct. 1011. The civil/criminal distinction has been breached by cases such as Flores v. Flores (Alas. 1979), 598 P.2d 893, and Salas v. Cortez (1979), 24 Cal. 3d 22, 593 P.2d 226, 154 Cal. Rptr. 529. Due process is a flexible concept; the demands of due process depend upon the nature of the litigant’s interest in the proceeding, the potential burdens on the State in supplying greater or lesser procedural safeguards, and the type of action involved. (Goldberg; Fuentes v. Shevin (1972), 407 U.S. 67, 32 L. Ed. 2d 556, 92 S. Ct. 1983.) Recause this conception of due process involves weighing the litigant’s and the State’s interests, it is not surprising that when significant or fundamental interests are involved, a particular civil litigant may be entitled to protections greater than those afforded litigants generally. (Note, 90 Harv. L. Rev. 1029, 1035 (1977).) The decisions such as Flores, Salas, and Payne, granting counsel to indigent litigants, reflect this recognition that the formal denomination of a matter as “civil” or “criminal” does not limit due process. See Sandoval v. Rattikin (1966), 385 U.S. 901, 17 L. Ed. 2d 132, 87 S. Ct. 199, where Justice Fortas, joined by Justice Douglas, dissented from the denial of certiorari. The petitioners in that case were illiterate indigents who spoke only Spanish; the case raised a due process question concerning their ability to present evidence. Claims challenging the constitutionality of the conditions under which persons in our society are confined present questions of great importance to the prisoners bringing those actions. The State’s interest in denying them counsel is based mainly on the resulting cost. Estimates of the number of attorneys needed to represent all prisoners in the United States range from approximately 900 (Tentative Draft of Standards Relating to the Legal Status of Prisoners, 14 Am. Grim. L. Rev. 377, 428 (1977)), based on 1970 census data and allotting one attorney to every 400 prisoners, to approximately 500 (Bounds, 430 U.S. 817, 831-32, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72, 85, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1500). Yet the constitutional right of access to the courts may not be completely denied on the basis of cost alone (Bounds, 430 U.S. 817, 825, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72, 81, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 1496), and we should not do so here. Problems involved in organizing legal representation for prisoners and paying the necessary attorneys are legislative rather than judicial. The American Bar Association’s final draft of standards regarding prisoners’ rights, although not recommending the appointment of counsel, calls for the maintenance of adequate law libraries regardless of the availability of other legal services, and thus does not read Bounds narrowly. ABA Standards, Legal Status of Prisoners §§2.1 through 2.3 (1981).