Hooks v. Wainwright
| Decision Date | 12 November 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-3756,84-3756 |
| Citation | 775 F.2d 1433 |
| Parties | Harold Raymond HOOKS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, etc., Defendant-Appellant. Harold Raymond HOOKS, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, etc., Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Mitchell D. Franks, Chief Trial Counsel, Walter M. Meginniss, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Civil Div., Tallahassee, Fla., for defendant-appellant.
James W. Clute, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Washington, D.C., Richard A. Belz, Fla. Institutional Legal Services, Inc., Gainesville, Fla., Peter M. Siegel, Florida Justice Institute, Inc., Miami, Fla., Charles H. Livingston, Sarasota, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before RONEY and FAY, Circuit Judges, and DUMBAULD *, District Judge.
This appeal presents a single issue certified by the district court for interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1292(b). The district court held that any acceptable plan for ensuring Florida prisoners meaningful access to the courts as required by Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), must include a provision for the assistance of counsel. The decision was made after extensive litigation, detailed in an appendix to this decision, and reflected in a thorough opinion. Hooks v. Wainwright, 536 F.Supp. 1330, 1355 (M.D.Fla.1982). The district court there resolved what it considered to be "the controlling constitutional question remaining in this cause, a question that has served as a roadblock to effective settlement negotiation for several years." Id. at 1353. It ordered that a plan be submitted which would incorporate a provision for assistance of counsel. 1 The district court stayed its order and certified it for interlocutory appeal pursuant to section 1292(b), in order to resolve this controlling question of law. It concluded that final resolution of that issue by this Court and, "perhaps, the Supreme Court, would materially advance the ultimate termination of this already protracted litigation." Id. at 1353. A preliminary injunction entered in 1977 remains in effect until an acceptable plan has been finally approved by the courts.
Because we hold that a state plan is not required to include a provision for attorney assistance to prisoners for the filing of collateral suits challenging either the legality of their confinement or the legality of the conditions of their confinement, we reverse.
The seminal Supreme Court case upon which the plaintiffs make their claim and the district court based its decision is Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). There the Court held that inmates' right to "meaningful access" to the courts required states to provide them with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law. Id. at 828, 97 S.Ct. at 1498. Both the district court and the plaintiffs focus on the rhetoric of the Bounds opinion, not its holding. The holding of Bounds supports the State's position in this case because the Court there rejected the argument made by the plaintiffs here. This is made particularly clear in the Court of Appeals decision which the Supreme Court affirmed in Bounds. The history of the litigation is reflected in the Fourth Circuit's opinion. Smith v. Bounds, 538 F.2d 541 (4th Cir.1975). The district court had granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on the claim that prisoners were being denied reasonable access to the courts in violation of their constitutional rights. It ordered the state officials to submit a proposed plan to remedy the violation. The plaintiffs objected to the State's suggested plan for prison legal research facilities because of the omission of any legal defender program as a supplement to the library facilities proposed under the plan. The district court had the parties submit briefs on the precise question that is now before this Court: whether an independent attorney's office, supplementary to the library facilities, was necessary to satisfy proper constitutional standards. After full consideration, the district court in Bounds refused to require the State to establish such an office.
The plaintiffs appealed that issue and the Court of Appeals affirmed, saying that:
the State is under no constitutional duty to offer the inmates of its penal institutions both adequate legal research facilities and an independent attorney's office, however helpful the dual service may be.
In its opinion, the United States Supreme Court noted that the district court had held the State was not constitutionally required to provide legal assistance as well as libraries, noted that the Court of Appeals affirmed that decision, and then affirmed without reservation. Justice Marshall's opinion recited the Court's precise holding:
We hold, therefore, that the 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.
430 U.S. at 828, 97 S.Ct. at 1498.
After detailing the value of lawyers and trained paralegals in a plan to meet the constitutional demands, the Court pointedly said: "Nevertheless, a legal access program need not include any particular element we have discussed...." Id. at 832, 97 S.Ct. at 1500. The Court then noted that although the district court had strongly suggested that it would prefer a plan providing trained legal advisors, the prison administrators had exercised their wide discretion within the bounds of constitutional requirements in choosing libraries, over the strong objections of the plaintiffs. Id. at 833, 97 S.Ct. at 1500-01. In so providing, it also pointed out that "while adequate law libraries are one constitutionally acceptable method to assure meaningful access to the courts, our decision ... does not foreclose alternative means to achieve that goal." Id. at 830, 97 S.Ct. at 1499. In this vein, it is noteworthy that Bounds refers to law libraries or other forms of legal assistance, in the disjunctive, no fewer than five times. See id. at 825, 828-29, 97 S.Ct. at 1496-1499.
Thus, the decision of the district court in this case is squarely contrary to the holding in Bounds. The argument that legal assistance is a necessary part of a state plan turns on what the Supreme Court meant by the "meaningful access" requirement: Id. at 823-24, 97 S.Ct. at 1495-96 (emphasis added).
The district court here made extensive findings concerning the character of Florida's prison system and inmate population. Emphasizing the more than 50% rate of inmate functional illiteracy, the low level of inmate education, the lack of physical access to libraries due to the number of prisons left with incomplete or nonexistent law libraries under the proposed plan, geographical distribution of inmates, and the lack of library access for inmates in administrative confinement, the district court concluded that the Florida plan was inadequate to provide meaningful access to the courts. It held that no plan contemplating libraries alone could be sufficient due to inmate illiteracy. "[M]eaningful access to the courts on behalf of all of Florida's inmates can be realized only through a plan that incorporates the assistance of counsel, in some form." Hooks v. Wainwright, 536 F.Supp. at 1349. The problem with such a decision is that it reads too expansively the words used by the Supreme Court: "meaningful access." Although it may take more decisions to ascertain exactly what the Supreme Court will decide is constitutionally required to assure "meaningful access," we know from the Bounds holding that the Supreme Court does not presently interpret those words to require the mandatory provision of legal services.
This should end the case. Without Bounds, there is no articulated precedent in this Circuit creating the constitutional right upon which the district court bases its decision. Although the district court relied to some extent on Cruz v. Hauck, 627 F.2d 710 (5th Cir.1980), Cruz merely discussed alternatives including assistance of counsel. It did not go beyond the Bounds requirement: "As stated in Bounds, access to the courts may be provided in whatever manner the state desires." Id. at 721.
The district court seemed to justify its divergence from the holding in Bounds by noting that it
was decided on summary judgment, without the benefit of an evidentiary hearing. To the contrary, the factual record in the instant case has been fully developed over more than 11 years of hard-fought litigation that has included three evidentiary hearings and numerous status hearings. It is embodied in boxes burgeoning with court files, transcripts and evidentiary exhibits.
This reasoning is deficient for at least two reasons. First, it fails to acknowledge that the plaintiffs were arguing that a much broader meaning be given to the term "meaningful access" than found in the Supreme Court opinion. Second, the district court overlooked the fact that much of what it learned at the evidentiary hearings, and upon which it based its divergence from Bounds, must have been known to the Supreme Court at the time Bounds was decided.
That books would be of no use to the illiterate needs no discussion. Bounds surely did not hold that libraries must be provided to illiterate prisoners. That inmate writ-writers or nonlawyer law clerks cannot provide the same assistance as lawyers, is obvious. That volunteer and legal aid lawyers, to whose...
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