Barbour v. Haley

Decision Date08 December 2006
Docket NumberNo. 06-10920.,06-10920.
Citation471 F.3d 1222
PartiesChristopher BARBOUR, Tony Barksdale, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Michael HALEY, in his official capacity as Commissioner, for the Alabama Department of Corrections, Stephen Bullard, in his official capacity as Warden of William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Angela L. Setzer, Bryan A. Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative of AL, Montgomery, AL, Stephen F. Hanlon, Holland & Knight, LLP, Washington, DC, Laurie Webb Daniel, Holland & Knight, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Margaret L. Fleming, Winfield J. Sinclair, James Roy Houts, J. Clayton Crenshaw, Kevin Christopher Newsom, Montgomery, AL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before ANDERSON and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and VINSON,* District Judge.

DUBINA, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal, we consider whether the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee Appellants, indigent Alabama death-sentenced inmates ("the inmates"), the right to state-appointed counsel or some lesser form of state-provided legal assistance for the preparation and presentation of their postconviction claims. Relying upon United States Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit precedents, as we must, we conclude that the United States Constitution does not afford appointed counsel on collateral review, and the inmates have failed to identify a lesser form of state-provided legal assistance to which they might be entitled. For these reasons, we affirm the district court's dismissal of the inmates' 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims.

I. BACKGROUND

On December 28, 2001, the inmates filed a class action complaint against the Commissioner for the Alabama Department of Corrections, the wardens of William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility and Holman State Prison (the facilities in which the inmates are incarcerated), and the Governor of the State of Alabama (defendants collectively referred to as "the State"). The inmates, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleged that the State violated their First, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights by (1) failing to provide counsel or any other form of legal assistance for the preparation and presentation of their postconviction claims, and (2) obstructing communication between the inmates and lawyers through restrictive visitation policies. The parties consented to have a magistrate judge conduct all proceedings and enter judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).

Thereafter, the State filed motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On March 24, 2003, the magistrate judge dismissed, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, count two of the inmates' complaint.1 The inmates moved for final judgment on the remaining issues and the State moved for summary judgment. Pursuant to a settlement between the parties, the magistrate judge dismissed the inmates' claims for interference with their efforts to gain access to legal assistance during the collateral review process. On January 23, 2006, the magistrate judge entered final judgment in favor of the State. The magistrate judge held that the right of meaningful access did not require the State to provide counsel to death-sentenced inmates for the purpose of investigating and filing postconviction petitions; Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413 (2002), foreclosed the inmates' claims for some lesser form of legal assistance; and the inmates' Sixth Amendment claims lacked merit (referring to its previous order in which the court ruled that there is no constitutional right to state-appointed counsel in postconviction proceedings). The magistrate judge's final order did not specifically address the inmates' Eighth Amendment claims; however, the court's earlier order which dismissed count two of the complaint included those claims.2 The inmates then perfected this appeal.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

The magistrate judge dismissed, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the inmates' Sixth Amendment and Eighth Amendment claims for state-appointed counsel. We review dismissals for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction de novo. See Summit Med. Assoc., P.C. v. Pryor, 180 F.3d 1326, 1333-34 (11th Cir.1999).

The magistrate judge rejected, as a matter of law, the inmates' Fourteenth Amendment claims for state-appointed postconviction counsel or some lesser form of state-provided legal assistance. We review the district court's conclusions of law de novo. Cent. State Transit & Leasing Corp. v. Jones Boat Yard, Inc., 206 F.3d 1373, 1376 (11th Cir.2000).

III. DISCUSSION
A. Fourteenth Amendment Right of Access to the Courts
1. Standing

The inmates contend that they are being denied meaningful access to the courts, in violation of Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), because the State does not provide them counsel to prepare and present to the courts their postconviction petitions. The State argues that the inmates lack standing to assert an access claim because they failed to prove "actual injury" as required by Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 349-50, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 2179, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996), and failed to establish a colorable underlying claim pursuant to Harbury, 536 U.S. at 414-15, 122 S.Ct. at 2186-87.

It is now clearly established that prisoners have a constitutional right of access to the courts. Bounds, 430 U.S. at 821, 97 S.Ct. at 1494. In some instances that right requires States to shoulder affirmative obligations to assure that indigent prisoners have an adequate opportunity to present their claims fairly. Id. at 824, 97 S.Ct. at 1496. Accordingly, the Supreme Court has held that the "right of access to the courts requires prison authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal papers by providing [them] with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law." Id. at 828, 97 S.Ct. at 1498. However, in order to assert a claim arising from the denial of meaningful access to the courts, an inmate must first establish an actual injury. Lewis, 518 U.S. at 349-50, 116 S.Ct. at 2179.

Actual injury may be established by demonstrating that an inmate's efforts to pursue a nonfrivolous claim were frustrated or impeded by a deficiency in the prison library or in a legal assistance program or by an official's action. Id. at 351, 116 S.Ct. at 2180; Bass v. Singletary, 143 F.3d 1442, 1445 (11th Cir.1998). For instance, an inmate could show actual injury with proof that a court dismissed his action for failure to comply with a technical requirement unknown to the inmate due to deficiencies in the prison's assistance facilities, or that a claim could not be presented to a court because an inmate was so stymied by the law library's inadequacies that he could not prepare a complaint. Lewis, 518 U.S. at 351, 116 S.Ct. at 2180. At the summary judgment stage, general factual allegations of injury will not suffice; rather, the plaintiff "must set forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts, which for purposes of the summary judgment motion will be taken to be true." Id. at 358, 116 S.Ct. at 2183.

The primary injury that the inmates allege is the preclusion and dismissal of potentially meritorious postconviction claims.3 They cite cases in which death-sentenced inmates' postconviction petitions were dismissed on procedural or limitations grounds as proof of actual injury. It is the State's position that because the inmates were actually able to file a postconviction petition, even if subsequently dismissed, the inmates cannot prove actual injury. However, this argument contravenes Lewis's instruction that an inmate need only demonstrate "that a complaint he prepared was dismissed for failure to satisfy some technical requirement which, because of deficiencies in the prison's legal assistance facilities, he could not have known." Id. at 351, 116 S.Ct. at 2180.

Even if the dismissal of an inmate's petition on procedural or limitations grounds could qualify under Lewis as an actual injury, the State maintains that the inmates have not proven any causal connection between the injury—dismissal of their postconviction petitions—and the conduct complained of-failure to provide counsel. However, for purposes of satisfying Article III's causation requirement, "we are concerned with something less than the concept of `proximate cause.'" Focus on the Family v. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Auth., 344 F.3d 1263, 1273 (11th Cir.2003) (citation omitted). "[E]ven harms that flow indirectly from the action in question can be said to be `fairly traceable' to that action for standing purposes." Id. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the dismissal of the inmates' postconviction petitions on procedural or limitations grounds is fairly traceable to the lack of counsel to adequately and timely prepare their petitions.

Next, the State alleges that the inmates fail to establish that they have colorable underlying claims because the underlying claims are not identified within their complaint. The purpose of recognizing an access claim is to provide vindication for a separate and distinct right to seek judicial relief. Harbury, 536 U.S. at 414-15, 122 S.Ct. at 2186. Therefore, a litigant asserting an access claim must also prove that he has a colorable underlying claim for which he seeks relief. Id. at 414-15, 122 S.Ct. at 2186-87. The right is ancillary to the underlying claim. Id. at 415, 122 S.Ct. at 2186. Thus, the plaintiff must identify within his complaint, a "`nonfrivolous,' `arguable' underlying claim." Id. at 415, 122 S.Ct. at 2187 (citation omitted). The complaint identified three forms of postconviction relief relevant to the inmates' claims—ineffective assistance of counsel, jury misconduct, and violations of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (...

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