Johnson v. Avery

• Decision Date: 21 January 1966
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 4170.
• Parties: William Joe JOHNSON, Petitioner, v. Harry S. AVERY, Commissioner, Department of Correction, and C. Murray Henderson, Warden, Tennessee State Penitentiary, Nashville, Tennessee, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

252 F. Supp. 783

William Joe JOHNSON, Petitioner, v. Harry S. AVERY, Commissioner, Department of Correction, and C. Murray Henderson, Warden, Tennessee State Penitentiary, Nashville, Tennessee, Respondents.

Civ. No. 4170.

United States District Court M. D. Tennesssee, Nashville Division.

January 21, 1966.

Pierce Winningham, III, Nashville, Tenn., for petitioner.

Henry C. Foutch, Asst. Atty. Gen., of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., for respondents.

WILLIAM E. MILLER, Chief Judge.

This proceeding was begun as a motion for law books, a typewriter, and release from solitary confinement under 28 U.S.C.A., § 1343(3) and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It is, in its essential aspects, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and it is so construed. The case comes on to be heard upon the petition and return, a hearing, and post-hearing briefs. It is not clear whether the petitioner has presented his claim of illegal confinement under maximum security to the state courts, but in any event under present state rulings the habeas corpus remedy in Tennessee would not be adequate to reach this question on its merits.

For the past eleven months, the petitioner has been kept in solitary confinement in the state penitentiary for the sole and admitted reason that he has violated a prison regulation which forbids prisoners from preparing habeas corpus petitions for other prisoners. Such solitary confinement is to continue until terminated on order of the Commissioner of Corrections.

This Court is aware of the extraordinary case load imposed upon the federal courts by the steadily increasing number of habeas corpus applications. In the past calendar year, this Court formally disposed of approximately 170 petitions, or nearly one formal disposition every 1½ work days. This number does not include the very substantial number of informal dispositions, by letter or otherwise. Still, the prison regulation in question cannot be justified as an attempt to lessen the work load of the courts, for that is a problem which must be dealt with by the courts, and not by prison officials.

The present case presents a question of first impression and of undoubted importance. From the Court's experience with habeas corpus petitions, it is apparent that without the assistance of some third party, many prisoners in the state penitentiary would be totally incapable of preparing an intelligible petition, letter or request on their own behalf. The respondent does not deny this, but asserts that the solution is for such a prisoner to contact a licensed attorney to act in his behalf. Of course, the same incapacities (sub-standard intelligence, inability to write, etc.) which make it impossible for a prisoner to draft a meaningful habeas corpus petition also make it impossible for him to draft a letter which would be sufficient to arouse the attorney's interest. Furthermore, few indeed would be the lawyers who would volunteer to represent such prisoners, the great majority of whom are totally indigent.

For all practical purposes, if such prisoners cannot have the assistance of a "jail-house lawyer," their possibly valid constitutional claims will never be heard in any court. At stake, then, is not only the claim of the instant petitioner, but more importantly, under the broad terms of the regulation, the practical denial to an indeterminate number of prisoners who are incapable of preparing their own requests or petitions of their day in court. Without some assistance, their right to habeas corpus in many instances becomes empty and meaningless. It is within this framework that we must examine the instant petition.

The common law and the courts have not been blind to similar problems. There are numerous cases which affirm the right of one party to petition for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a second party whenever it is shown first, that the petition is authorized by the second party, and second, that the second party is himself incapacitated or incapable of filing a petition. See, for example, United States ex rel. Funaro v. Watchorn, 164 F. 152 (C.C.S.D.N.Y., 1908), and Collins v. Traeger, 27 F.2d 842 (9th Cir., 1928).¹ These cases prompted the revisers to amend 28 U.S. C.A. § 2242 so that it now reads:

Application for a writ of habeas corpus shall be in writing signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting in his behalf. (emphasis supplied to reflect amendment)

By preparing petitions for other prisoners, the petitioner is certainly acting in their behalf. True, he does not actually sign or verify the petition, or himself submit it to the Court, but the statute may easily and justly be interpreted to include the lesser act of assistance in preparation of the petition within the meaning of "signed and verified." Certainly, if a prisoner is incapable of signing and verifying a petition, he is incapable of preparing one. The objection, in any event, would be insignificant since, in the future, the petitioner could actually sign and verify the petitions which he prepares.

Of course, the purpose of the statute is not to protect the petitioner, but to protect the constitutional rights of persons who are incapable of asserting their own rights. The situation, then, is this. Prisoners have a federal right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus. They have also a federal statutory right to have this remedy made effective by authorizing some third party to proceed in their behalf. Other prisoners have authorized the petitioner to do just that, and for his assistance the prison officials have placed him in solitary confinement for eleven months. Clearly, by the instant regulation, the prison officials have interfered with the statutory right of prisoners, incapable of acting for themselves, to have someone act on their behalf just as surely and effectively as if the officials had made it an offense for such prisoners to request such assistance. No matter how it is analyzed, the effect of the prison regulation now in question is to deprive these prisoners of their federal statutory right to have a habeas corpus petition filed on their behalf by a third party. This is not to say that state prison authorities may not impose reasonable restraints upon the activities of so-called "jail-house lawyers," activities which doubtless cause many problems, including problems of prison discipline and morale. It may be, for example, that a regulation prohibiting the giving or receipt of compensation for such services, or restricting and regulating the time when they could be rendered, if accompanied by reasonable sanctions, would pass muster. Indeed, a regulation prohibiting the practice altogether might well be sustained if the state afforded to prison inmates any reasonable alternative, such as an available list of qualified lawyers willing to volunteer their services, access to a public defender having statutory authority to represent them, or some other mode of ready and convenient contact with some qualified person capable of rendering them assistance in the preparation of their petitions or applications for habeas corpus relief. The present regulation, however, is absolute in its terms, it affords no alternatives, and it has the practical effect of silencing forever any constitutional claims which many prisoners might have.

The question is whether this prison regulation, not directly authorized by state statute or state law, can be allowed to nullify a federal statute and, in turn, to...