Court Opinion

ID: 9469771
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:48:52.36032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:33.691862
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The court in this prisoners’ rights case reverses the judgment dismissing the complaint and remands the case for (1) appointment of counsel for the plaintiff (McKeever, the prisoner) and (2) reconsideration of the other issues that McKeever raises in this appeal. To my regret, I am unable to concur in either part of the decision.
The basis of (2) is, in the court’s words, that the “defendants have inexcusably failed to brief” any issues other than that of appointment of counsel. I agree that the defendants’ neglect was unhelpful, both to this court and, as it turns out, to the defendants’ own interests; that there was no good excuse for their neglect; and hence that some sanction would be appropriate. I could understand therefore if this court declared the defendants in default on the issues they failed to brief, or, more mercifully, ordered the defendants to file a supplemental brief dealing with those issues on pain of being declared in default on them if they refused to do so. But what purpose is served by remanding the issues to the district judge for him to reconsider them, I do not understand. We know his views; and while it is possible that his mind may be changed when McKeever’s appointed counsel reargues the issues to him, this is unlikely and makes it foreseeable that we will have to decide those issues on a subsequent appeal in this case. It would make more sense simply to ask the defendants for a supplemental brief, and of course give McKeever (who is represented by counsel in this court) an opportunity to reply to it.
The more important issue raised by this appeal is appointment of counsel for McKeever. However dubious — bizarre, even — it might seem as an original matter to allow lawfully imprisoned convicts to spend their time bringing damage suits against their jailers, so that instead of reflecting on the wrongs they have done to society our convicts — exchanging as it were contrition for indignation — prosecute an endless series of mostly imaginary grievances against society, this branch of federal jurisdiction is too well established for me to question it and I do not, but merely record in passing my amazement that it has been allowed to grow to its present extent. (In fiscal year 1981, almost 16,000 suits under section 1983 were brought by state prisoners.) Neither do I question that 28 U.S.C. § 1915(d) empowers the district court in a prisoner’s civil rights case to “request” a lawyer — whatever exactly that means (on which see the recent discussion in Caruth v. Pinkney, 683 F.2d 1044, 1048-49 (7th Cir. 1982)) — to represent an indigent plaintiff without hope of fee beyond what the lawyer can expect under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 in the event that the plaintiff prevails in the suit, which these plaintiffs rarely do. I also do not question that the district judge in the present case, mistakenly believing that section 1915(d) comes into play only when Congress appropriates funds to compensate appointed (or “requested”) counsel, committed error by failing to exercise his discretion under this statute.
But the question is again what to do. We have a choice of (1) remanding the case for the district court to exercise its discretion; (2) declaring the error harmless; or (3) concluding that the case for giving McKeever counsel is so overwhelming that it would be *1324an abuse of discretion if the district court did not request counsel for him, and therefore directing the district court to do so. The panel majority chooses (3). This choice, I respectfully suggest, does not take seriously the difference between an exercise of discretion and the review of that exercise under an abuse of discretion standard, the standard applicable to decisions whether to appoint counsel under section 1915(d). Maclin v. Freake, 650 F.2d 885, 886 (7th Cir. 1981) (per curiam). Only in a very clear case would we be warranted in acting in a matter committed to the discretion of the district court without getting the district judge’s views; and unless we are prepared to adopt a presumption that a prisoner in a civil rights case is entitled to have counsel appointed for him, the facts here do not make the outcome of the district court’s exercise of its discretion foreordained. This seems rather a routine prisoners’ rights case: a scatter shot of implausible charges. McKeever’s main charge — unauthorized removal of a number of letters from his possession — is straightforward; if the district court could not properly have refused to appoint counsel in this case, when could it properly do so?
I question the use of events at trial to show that McKeever was entitled to counsel. The issue is not whether McKeever botched his trial and should have another, this time with a lawyer, but whether on the basis of the facts as they appeared when McKeever requested appointment of counsel the district judge could not in the proper exercise of his discretion have refused to grant the request. The events at trial are relevant, but on the distinct issue of harmless error, where they provide ground for affirmance rather than reversal. The trial revealed that McKeever was a liar. In his complaint he had sworn that defendant Hilt was the person who had taken his letters; at trial he testified that Hilt was nowhere about when the incident occurred. If it is clear that McKeever ought to lose his case oh the merits, the failure to appoint counsel for him, in a civil case where there is no constitutional right to counsel, Randall v. Wyrick, 642 F.2d 304, 307 n.6 (8th Cir. 1981), was a harmless error — one might even say a happy error.
The strongest argument for appointing counsel for McKeever relates not to the issue that was tried (whether Hilt took McKeever’s letters) but to McKeever’s efforts to broaden the scope of the suit to allege that the defendants had beaten him up. He lied about the letters but it does not follow that he must have lied about the beatings too. The district court may have hamstrung McKeever’s efforts to amend his complaint to include the beatings — maybe he really did need a lawyer to help him figure out Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. But the error, if there was any, was again harmless, though for a different reason. The alleged beatings state a different cause of action from the alleged conversion of the letters. Therefore the judgment against McKeever in the present case, if upheld by this court, would not be res judicata with regard to the beatings and so would not prevent McKeever from filing a new complaint based on them.
My disagreement with.the panel’s resolution of the appointment of counsel issue is independent of whether the approach to dealing with such issues set forth in Maclin v. Freake, supra, 650 F.2d at 887-89, and followed in the panel’s' opinion, is correct; but I will not try to conceal my unhappiness with that approach. Maclin holds that in deciding whether to appoint counsel for a prisoner in a civil case the district court should take into account the probable merit of the claim, whether there are difficult factual or legal issues, and the competence of the prisoner to represent himself. But this omits the most important consideration of all — the ability of a prisoner to secure retained as distinct from appointed (or “requested”) counsel in a meritorious case. Where damages are sought, the prisoner should have no difficulty finding a lawyer willing to take his case on a contingent-fee basis, provided the case has some merit. Even if only injunctive relief is sought, he should be able to retain counsel to assist him with a claim having substantial merit, because 42 U.S.C. § 1988 allows the court to *1325award the winning party in a civil rights case a reasonable attorney’s fee, and the award is made as a matter of course when the plaintiff is the winner. See, e.g., Bond v. Stanton, 630 F.2d 1231 (7th Cir. 1980).
Encouraging the use of retained counsel thus provides a market test of the merits of the prisoner’s claim. If it is a meritorious claim there will be money in it for a lawyer; if it is not it ought not to be forced on some hapless unpaid lawyer. In contrast, the appointment of counsel is a source of endless conflict between prisoners and lawyers. The following pattern has become commonplace: after reviewing the case, the lawyer who has been appointed to represent the prisoner advises the court that the case has no merit, and asks leave to withdraw; and the prisoner then accuses that lawyer (who after all was not his personal choice) of incompetence and bad faith and requests the appointment of another. The cycle begins again, and very often the prisoner ends up proceeding pro se.
Thus, unlike the panel that decided Maclin, I believe there should be a presumption against appointing counsel in a prisoner’s civil rights suit. See Allison v. Wilson, 277 F.Supp. 271, 273 (N.D.Cal.1967); Owens v. Swift Agricultural & Chem. Corp., 477 F.Supp. 91, 93 (E.D.Va.), aff’d without opinion, 612 F.2d 1309 (4th Cir. 1979). But even if I thought the approach of Maclin correct I could not agree that we have disposed of the present ease correctly; and I am concerned that the panel’s decision — both the outcome and some language in the opinion that could be read to suggest that this panel regards Maclin not merely as rejecting any presumption against appointment of counsel but as creating a presumption in favor of appointment (“We firmly believe that our adversary system of justice works best when both sides are zealously and competently represented. This principle has obvious implications ... for the appointment of counsel for indigent prisoners at the trial level ... ”) — may be interpreted by the district courts of this circuit as another step on the road toward making appointment of counsel in prisoners’ civil rights cases routine. That is not a destination I should like to reach. There are not enough lawyers in America to satisfy prisoners’ demands for free legal counsel; those demands are insatiable. But more ominous than the extra burdens on the legal profession, judges, and prison administrators if every prisoner is given the assistance of a lawyer in prosecuting his civil claims are the implications for the perceived legitimacy of criminal punishment if no sooner are the gates slammed shut on the convicted criminal defendant than the tables are turned and the prosecuted — with appointed counsel at his side — becomes the prosecutor.
Perhaps this apocalypse is already upon us. Our criminal prosecutions are becoming — to use an ugly but apt word — multiphasic. The familiar first phase comprises the criminal trial itself and any direct appeal from it. After the conviction has been affirmed, the phase of postconviction proceedings begins — first the state postconviction proceedings (I am speaking of state prosecutions, since the present case involves a state prisoner), then federal habeas corpus and maybe, after the sentence has been served, coram nobis as well. The third phase will meanwhile be getting under way. It consists of the section 1983 lawsuits, often numerous, complaining about mistreatment or neglect by prison officials and employees. When the prisoner is released from jail or has exhausted his imagination in devising section 1983 claims, the fourth phase begins, consisting of lawsuits against the prisoner’s lawyers and the judges in the earlier phases complaining that by failing to secure his civil rights they violated those rights. When all this futile litigation has finally ended, the criminal is conscious not of the wrong he did but of his own multitudinous claims to justice whose vindication an unjust legal system kept always just outside his reach. He emerges not chastened, but full of passionate resentment.
By enlarging the prisoner’s right to counsel the decision today, I respectfully suggest, moves us closer to the time when the pattern sketched above will become the norm in our criminal justice system.