Court Opinion

ID: 9475787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:38:14.919814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:56.165706
License: Public Domain

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree that we should not disturb the summary judgment for defendant with respect to plaintiffs claims of error in denying class certification and in failing to appoint a lawyer. But as I read this record, entry of summary judgment for defendant with respect to plaintiffs claim that the jail’s law library facilities were constitutionally inadequate and he was thus denied access to the courts was premature. I would reverse and remand as to this issue. From the contrary determination I respectfully dissent.
I.
In the record, plaintiff’s sworn statements establish that he was incarcerated in the Portsmouth City Jail in July 23, 1984. He requested permission for his sister to bring law books to him in jail, specifically two volumes of the Code of Virginia and one volume described merely as “Federal.” This permission was denied and he was allowed to go to the jail library for one hour each Thursday. The only law books there were the Code of Virginia with some volumes missing. He complained about the missing books and on or about August 15, “the Sheriff sent me two law books ...”
The library consists of one shelf of books in a room containing two ping-pong tables, a weight lifting machine, a pinball machine, two tables, a barber chair in use for cutting hair, a newspaper rack, thirty chairs, lockers and fifteen other shelves of books containing fiction. When an inmate is permitted to use the “library” for one hour per week, it is also in use for recreational activities and games and these generate noise and distraction.
While the sheriff, by affidavit, asserts that there is an adequate law library, he does not describe the collection except to say that he recently added Corpus Juris Secundum and that he delivered unidentified law books to plaintiff in August 16, 1984.
II.
An inmate’s constitutional right of access to the courts, Ex Parte Hull, 312 U.S. 546, 61 S.Ct. 640, 85 L.Ed. 1034 (1941); Blanks v. Cunningham, 409 F.2d 220 (4 Cir.1969), includes a duty on the part of his jailors to provide him with an adequate law library or legal counsel, Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1498, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). In my view this record presently fails to establish beyond dispute that either was provided.
There is of course no evidence of a plan to provide legal counsel. Whether the library collection was adequate is highly questionable. A partial collection of the Virginia Code even supplemented with Corpus Juris Secundum is clearly unequal to the task of providing a prisoner meaningful access to the courts. Bounds, 430 U.S. at 823, 97 S.Ct. at 1495. We have said in a case involving the Richmond City Jail that absent court reports, a library was “wholly inadequate for researching criminal law or prisoner’s rights issues ...” Harris v. Young, 718 F.2d 620, 621 (4 Cir.1983).
Even aside from the question of adequacy of the collection there is a problem as to *454whether the research opportunities of only one hour per week in a noisy place of general recreation for other prisoners would satisfy constitutional standards.
In short, I do not think that on this record it can be concluded that beyond factual dispute plaintiff’s right of access to the courts was honored. Of course I realize that plaintiff was incarcerated in the Portsmouth jail as a parole violator for only a short period, and I have no thought that a temporary holding facility of this nature must have library facilities as extensive as those which the constitution may require at facilities for long term prisoners. Both the Fifth Circuit and we have recognized that the library needs of short term prisoners are not as extensive as those of long term prisoners. Cruz v. Hauck, 627 F.2d 710, 719 (5 Cir.1980); Williams v. Leeke, 584 F.2d 1336, 1340 (4 Cir.1978), cert denied, 442 U.S. 911, 99 S.Ct. 2825, 61 L.Ed.2d 276 (1979). But even under a lesser standard for an inmate like plaintiff, I do not think that this case can be finally decided on this record. On the issue of sufficiency of the library and access to the library, I would vacate the judgment and remand for fuller evidentiary development.