Court Opinion

ID: 9561648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:13:35.22141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:05.675463
License: Public Domain

Goodloe, J.
(dissenting)—The majority holds "a prisoner's due process right of access to the courts includes the right to bring actions for dissolution of marriage and for related matters." Majority opinion, at 866. Thus, they require Pierce County Superior Court to proceed with ex parte petitions mailed to the court by incarcerated prisoners even though the prisoners wish to bring them pro se and are personally unable to appear. I must dissent.
*870Civil actions brought by prisoners unrelated to their incarceration reasonably are and should be subject to limitation. See Special Project, The Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction, 23 Vand. L. Rev. 929, 1018-27 (1970). '"Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system."' Smith v. Fairman, 678 F.2d 52, 54 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 907 (1983), quoting Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285, 92 L. Ed. 1356, 68 S. Ct. 1049 (1948). Accordingly, courts should have wide discretion to determine the extent to which they wish to make themselves available to prisoner civil litigation unrelated to incarceration. As stated in Kirby v. Thomas, 336 F.2d 462, 463 (6th Cir. 1964): "The enforcement of the regulation preventing the filing of ordinary civil actions by prisoners which do not relate to their personal liberty is a matter of prison discipline and is not in violation of any constitutional restriction." See also Seybold v. Milwaukee Cy. Sheriff, 276 F. Supp. 484, 486 (E.D. Wis. 1967); Maurer v. Pitchess, 530 F. Supp. 77, 81 (C.D. Cal. 1981).
The majority relies on cases which either (a) do not involve prisoners or incarcerated felons or (b) involve prisoners' actions which are related to their incarceration. Thus, in so relying, they fail to recognize that governmental needs warrant a certain amount of interference with the rights of incarcerated individuals.
The majority has interpreted In re Young, 95 Wn.2d 216, 220, 622 P.2d 373 (1980) and Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 579, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 94 S. Ct. 2963 (1974), to allow prisoners unhindered access to the courts to bring actions unrelated to their incarcerations. In Young and Wolff the actions which the prisoners wished to bring related to their incarceration; in contrast, the petitioners' cases involve matters unrelated to incarceration. I contend the majority's interpretation of Young and Wolff is too broad. A prisoner's access to the courts reasonably should be limited to a challenge to his or her conviction and to claims involving *871deprivations of personal liberty. The majority's reading of Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 28 L. Ed. 2d 113, 91 S. Ct. 780 (1971) and Bullock v. Superior Court, 84 Wn.2d 101, 103, 524 P.2d 385 (1974) likewise is too broad. Boddie and Bullock involved the right of indigents to have access to the courts in a dissolution action. These cases did not involve prison inmates. Boddie and Bullock held that the right to a dissolution of marriage, the means of which are controlled by the State, is not to be denied because of indi-gency. Clearly, indigents must not be denied their full panoply of rights because of their indigency; inmates, however, may be denied particular rights because of their incarceration.
Incarcerated prisoners are entitled to the process that is appropriate to the circumstances. Mutual accommodation between the needs of the institution and prisoners' right of access to the courts is necessary. I agree with the Pierce County Superior Court that the method of handling ex parte matters is of legitimate concern to courts. I contend that the taxpayer ought not be required to bear the expenses and burdens necessarily incurred to afford prisoners the opportunity to bring a civil action unrelated to incarceration.
The treatment the prisoners argue for is one of preference. Pierce County Superior Court requires all other pro se indigents to appear personally to present ex parte orders. The majority fails to recognize that the important distinction here is not indigency, but rather incarceration. This distinction is one of the prisoners' own making. Consequently, I do not believe that the Pierce County local Superior Court rule unreasonably infringes on the prisoners' constitutional rights.
I would not require Pierce County Superior Court to proceed with the prisoners' ex parte petitions which are received through the mail. At the present time the King County Superior Court is studying the burdensome problem of pro se litigation in civil matters, and one can easily imagine the difficulties if inmates throughout the state were *872free to litigate from their cells. Additional rules of court would need to be adopted for additional in absentia proceedings. For the reasons stated, I dissent.