Glover v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 27 March 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-1617,94-1617 |
| Citation | 75 F.3d 264 |
| Parties | Mary GLOVER, Lynda Gates; Jimmie Ann Brown; Manette Gant; Jacalyn M. Settles; and several Jane Does, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Perry JOHNSON, Director, Michigan Department of Corrections; Florence R. Crane; G. Robert Cotton; Thomas K. Eardley, Jr.; B. James George, Jr.; Duane L. Waters; The Michigan Corrections Commission; William Kime, Director, Bureau of Programs; Robert Brown, Jr., Director, Bureau of Correctional Facilities; Frank Beetham, Director, Bureau of Prison Industries; Richard Nelson, Director, Bureau of Filed Services; Gloria Richardson, Superintendent, Huron Valley Women's Facility; Dorothy Costen, Director of Treatment, Huron Valley Women's Facility; Clyde Graven, Sheriff, Kalamazoo County, individually, and in their official capacities, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan; John Feikens, Judge.
Michael Barnhart, Barnhart & Mirer, Detroit, MI, Barbara L. Kessler, Ann Arbor, Deborah A. LaBelle (argued and briefed), Law Offices of Deborah LaBelle, Detroit, MI, for Mary Glover.
Michael Barnhart, Barnhart & Mirer, Detroit, MI, Deborah A. LaBelle (argued and briefed), Law Offices of Deborah LaBelle, Detroit, MI, for Lynda Gates and Jimmie Ann Brown.
Michael Barnhart, Barnhart & Mirer, Detroit, MI, for Manette Gant, Jacalyn M. Settles and Jane Does.
Nechama Masliansky (briefed), National Center on Women and Family Law, Detroit, MI, Anne L. Argiroff (briefed), Michigan Legal Services, Detroit, MI, for National Center on Women and Family Law.
Julie Kunce Field, Lansing, MI, Anne L. Argiroff, Michigan Legal Services, Detroit, MI, for Woman Lawyers Association of Michigan.
David G. Edick, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Div., Lansing, MI, Kim G. Harris (argued and briefed), Michigan Dept. of Attorney General, Corrections Div., Lansing, MI, for Clyde Graven and G. Robert Cotton.
David G. Edick, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Div., Lansing, MI, for all other Defendants-Appellants.
Before: WELLFORD, NELSON, and SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judges.
Nearly twenty years ago, a group of female prisoners in the Michigan state system filed this class action claiming that they were denied access to the courts and constitutional equal protection rights. Those plaintiffs "demanded that defendants and others, members of the Michigan Corrections Commission ('Commission'), provide them with educational and vocational opportunities comparable to those provided male inmates." Glover v. Johnson, 721 F.Supp. 808, 811 (E.D.Mich.1989). 1 After a bench trial, District Judge Feikens found that "the educational opportunities available to the Department's women prisoners were substantially inferior to those available to the Department's male prisoners." Id. Consequently, Judge Feikens entered an order setting forth a general remedial plan to provide higher education and vocational training for female prisoners. 2
Over the course of several years, the district court has supervised the implementation of the remedial plan and has necessarily entered a panoply of orders intended to address particular issues. Specifically, in August, 1991, the court ordered the defendants to "contract with Prison Legal Services ["PLS"] forthwith to provide on-site services at all facilities and camps housing women prisoners." In accordance with that order, the defendants continued through 1993 to contract with PLS, as it had since 1979, to provide legal services to the plaintiffs in areas including "child custody disputes/neglect actions." In a letter to the district court dated November 2, 1993, however, the defendants declared that they would discontinue funding for such services because it would be improper "to continue using state funds to provide child custody assistance to offenders when law-abiding Michiganders have no right to [free] state assistance for such services."
The plaintiffs filed a motion to enjoin the defendants from discontinuing the child custody assistance, claiming that such an action would violate the court's August, 1991 order. The district court granted the plaintiffs' motion, finding the defendants in contempt and enjoining them from "unilaterally changing or modifying in any way the staffing of PLS and the areas in which PLS provides services to women inmates absent a motion to modify or to seek leave of this court." The court added that "staffing levels and areas of assistance must comply with orders and terms provided in the 1992 contract." Furthermore, the district court found that the plaintiff class was entitled under the due process clause of the Constitution to a "right to legal assistance in parental rights matters." The defendants filed this timely appeal.
The defendants first argue that the district court erred in holding them in contempt for violating a previous court order. This court reviews a finding of contempt under an abuse of discretion standard. Glover v. Johnson, 934 F.2d 703 (6th Cir.1991); NLRB v. Cincinnati Bronze, Inc., 829 F.2d 585, 590 (6th Cir.1987). This court has stated in a previous proceeding in this case that "[i]n a civil contempt proceeding, the petitioner must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the respondent violated the court's prior order." Glover, 934 F.2d at 707. The district court below found the defendants in contempt based on a combination of the August, 1991 order, the subsequent contracts between the state and PLS, and the "custom and practice" of providing the requested service that had been followed throughout the case.
We find no order, however, mandating that the defendants pay for PLS to provide services in family law/child custody matters. The only applicable order of the district court (the August, 1991 Order) requires the state to "contract ... to provide on-site services" at the prison facility. The plaintiff class merely argues that the court required such assistance implicitly in the prior orders of the court. On the contrary, we do not find any evidence that the court ever required that the state fund legal assistance in any particular area of the law, as the plaintiffs contend. Therefore, in the absence of any violated order of the court, we would find that the district court abused its discretion in finding the defendants in contempt.
The defendants also contend that the district court erred, as a matter of law, in finding that the Constitution requires them to provide legal assistance to plaintiffs in parental rights/child custody matters to ensure their meaningful access to the courts. 3 This court has addressed the "access to court" right, but did not limit the analysis to male or female prisoners, in Knop v. Johnson, 977 F.2d 996 (6th Cir.1992), cert. denied sub nom. Knop v. McGinnis, 507 U.S. 973, 113 S.Ct. 1415, 122 L.Ed.2d 786 (1993). This court quoted from Bounds v. Smith in defining the right to access:
[T]he fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law.
Knop, 977 F.2d at 1003 (quoting Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 825, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1496-97, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977)). We emphasized that " Bounds refers to law libraries or other forms of legal assistance, in the disjunctive, no fewer than five times." Id. at 1003 (quoting Hooks v. Wainwright, 775 F.2d 1433, 1435 (11th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 913, 107 S.Ct. 313, 93 L.Ed.2d 287 (1986)).
In Knop, this court held that Michigan was not constitutionally required to provide legal assistance to help prisoners prepare their own civil lawsuits. Id. at 1005. We added:
It may well be a good idea for Michigan to provide lawyers for prisoners who want to bring lawsuits of their own. Federal judges, however, should be ever mindful of the obvious fact that not all good ideas are mandated by the Constitution. Hooks v. Wainwright, 775 F.2d 1433, 1438 (11th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 913, 107 S.Ct. 313, 93 L.Ed.2d 287 (1986). As Justice O'Connor succinctly put in her concurring opinion in Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U.S. 1, 13, 109 S.Ct. 2765, 2772, 106 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), "[b]eyond the requirements of Bounds, the matter is one of legislative choice based on difficult policy considerations and the allocation of scarce legal resources." (Emphasis supplied.)
In our constitutional democracy, as we understand it, legislative choices are to be made by legislators who are subject to removal by the people, and not by judges who enjoy office for life. See San Antonio Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 31, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 1295, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973) (); cf. Kelley v. Metropolitan Co. Bd. of Educ., 836 F.2d 986, 996 (6th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1206, 108 S.Ct. 2848, 101 L.Ed.2d 885 (1988). A " 'mother knows best' approach should play no part in traditional constitutional adjudication." Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U.S. 1, 11, 109 S.Ct 2765, 2771, 106 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) (Plurality opinion of Rehnquist, C.J.).
While Knop was concerned with prisoners who desired legal assistance and access in civil suits as plaintiffs, we believe the principles expressed apply equally to child custody, family law, and domestic cases whether the prisoner be a plaintiff or a defendant. Knop concluded that mandated legal assistance should be confined to habeas corpus proceedings and "civil rights actions involving constitutional claims." Id. at 1009 (emphasis added). Further affirmative legal assistance...
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