Court Opinion

ID: 9797075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:12:43.108493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:30.893314
License: Public Domain

*556OPALA, V.C.J.,
concurring in result.
¶ 1 I would pronounce today that, insofar as the prisoner’s paperwork should be treated as launching before this court a facial attack upon the constitutional validity of those provisions in 57 O.S.2001 § 566.21 which are said impermissibly to impede the prisoner’s forensic access, the cited statute will pass muster under both the due process clauses (federal and state) and under state-law testing for compliance with the terms of Art. 2 § 6, Okl. Const. Affording reasonable protection against abuse of judicial process by those who repeatedly press meritless civil claims lies well within the power of the legislature.2
¶ 2 As for an alleged constitutional infirmity in the cited statute’s application to this cause, I would conclude the prisoner failed to offer below any evidentiary material which would show that raising against him the § 566.2’s bar would, under the circumstances invoked by the State, offend minimum due process criteria (federal or state) as well as those standards of Oklahoma fundamental law which guarantee him a sine qua non opportunity for critical civil litigation access.3

. The terms of 57 O.S.2001 § 566.2 are:
"A. A prisoner who has, on three or more prior occasions, while incarcerated or detained in any facility, or while on probation or parole, brought an action or appeal in a court of this state or a court of the United States that has been dismissed on the grounds that the case was frivolous, or malicious, or failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, may not proceed in a matter arising out of a civil case, or upon an original action or on appeal without prepayment of all fees required by law, unless the prisoner is under immediate danger of serious physical injury. * * * "

. Shabazz v. Keating, 1999 OK 26, 977 P.2d 1089, 1095.

. I would neither analyze nor even mention here any equal-protection jurisprudence. Because that Fourteenth Amendment's clause is not tendered for today's testing, I would not speculate either on the viability or applicability of Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620 (1966); Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 240, 90 S.Ct. 2018, 2022, 26 L.Ed.2d 586 (1970); Humphrey v. Cady, 405 U.S. 504, 92 S.Ct. 1048, 31 L.Ed.2d 394 (1972). Legislative classification which sets apart a class without any rational basis for its severance from other classes may offend the equal protection clause. If legislative classification is found to be imper-missibly narrow, it is subject to judicial condemnation as "underinclusive''. Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 272, 99 S.Ct. 1102, 1108, 59 L.Ed.2d 306 (1979); Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U.S. 7, 13-14, 95 S.Ct. 1373, 1377, 43 L.Ed.2d 688 (1975); See also Wilson v. Foster, 1979 OK 45, 595 P.2d 1329, 1332.