Court Opinion

ID: 9423230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:06:38.240305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:43.110225
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
dissenting.
New Jersey recoups the cost of trial transcripts furnished to indigents out of prison allowances made to incarcerated prisoners, but does not seek reimbursement from parolees or convicted defendants not imprisoned. The Court holds this differentiation to violate the Equal Protection Clause. I am unable to agree. Under conventional equal-protection standards which disapprove only irrational and arbitrary classifications, the statute is plainly valid. See McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 190-191; McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 426; Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78-79. Surely the State might reasonably choose to reimburse itself for such transcript costs out of prison allowances, but deem it not worth the added time and trouble, or even advisable, to attempt to extract such charges from a convict not in prison who must support himself on his own resources. Adhering to the traditional test of rationality, I would affirm the decision of the District Court.*

 I find no substance to appellant’s main argument, which the Court lays aside, that to permit any such recoupment from an indigent is an unconstitutional deterrent to appeal. Nor do I think there is any force to the argument in n. 4 (ante, p. 308), not even suggested by appellant, which at best goes to the validity of the statutes governing compensation and not to the reimbursement statute being reviewed.