Court Opinion

ID: 9722808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:50:59.420197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:40.340427
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Acting P. J.
I fully concur in the court’s opinion and decision but believe that additional observations are needful. Despite contrary claims, experienced judges know that a large portion of prisoner petitions are characterized by untrue or distorted allegations and complaints of fancied wrongs. (Cf. 25 Stan.L.Rev. 1, 37-39.) Judges are understandably reluctant to load clogged calendars by issuing orders to show cause in response to habeas corpus petitions which turn out to be frivolous. Some kind of screening capability is essential to the sensible fulfillment of habeas corpus responsibility.
The gap between habeas corpus responsibility and capability is a well-known and unsolved problem in the administration of California justice. Court administrative facilities for handling prisoner petitions have fallen far behind substantive advances in prison law. (See 1971 Report, Judicial Council of Cal., pp. 22-65; Vanderet, Procedural Due *925Process in California Prisons, 48 State Bar J. 668; Flint, Judicial Responses to Problems of Prison Administration: A Bibliography (Am. Judicature Society Report No. 33).)
Most superior courts have no legal or investigative assistants. In Reaves v. Superior Court, 22 Cal.App.3d 587 [99 Cal.Rptr. 156], we held that a superior court may not utilize the district attorney as its agent to screen habeas corpus petitions but suggested that judges utilize their clerks for help in acquiring informative official documents. The suggestion was at best an expedient. It had at least as much validity as our dependence upon inmate “writ writers” as the stout champions of hard-won constitutional liberties (see Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483 [21 L.Ed.2d 718, 89 S.Ct. 747]). These liberties are poorly served when prison writ writers concoct irresponsible habeas corpus petitions. They are worse served when hard-pressed trial judges lack skilled assistance to screen these petitions. The agencies of the State of California are concertedly stiffing the right of habeas corpus.
The flow of “conditions” petitions varies in direct ratio to prison tensions. Important sources of prison tension can be relieved by institutional administrative remedies and by the availability of ombudsmen and legal advisers. The California Department of Corrections has taken a progressive step by providing administrative appeals from inmate disciplinary actions. Experience will show that additional pressure-reducing mechanisms are inevitable. Faced with continued executive and legislative neglect of prison conditions, the superior courts in counties with state prisons should press for parajudicial help. That pending habeas corpus petitions should collect dust in court files is intolerable in a state which professes allegiance to constitutional guaranties. I assume that the executive and legislative branches, equally with the judiciary, share responsibility for these guaranties.
A petition for a rehearing was denied October 22, 1975, and petitioner’s application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied December 11, 1975. Wright, C. J., Tobriner, J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the application should be granted.