Shango v. Jurich, 89-2620

Citation965 F.2d 289
Decision Date02 June 1992
Docket NumberNo. 89-2620,89-2620
PartiesSHANGO (Cleve Heidelberg, Jr.), Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Mary JURICH, Allyn Sielaff, David Brierton, Robert Kapture and Charles DeYoung, Defendants-Appellees. Sylvester HENDERSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David BRIERTON, Mary Jurich, Robert Kapture, Arthur Wallenstein and Art Moen, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Frank S. Merritt, Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, George J. Casson, Jr. (argued), Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Richard M. Carbonara, Lawrence R. LaSusa, William D. Frazier, Elizabeth M. Scarano, Susan Frederick Rhodes (argued), Asst. Attys. Gen., Office of Atty. Gen., Jerome F. Goldberg, Goldberg & Murphy, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before WOOD, Jr., * COFFEY, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

HARLINGTON WOOD, JR., Circuit Judge.

This appeal of two consolidated cases presents two issues, aspects of which plaintiff Shango, nee Cleve Heidelberg, Jr., an inmate at the Stateville Correctional Center, Joliet, Illinois, first raised nearly two decades ago. 1 Today, we affirm the judgment of the district court that Stateville provides constitutionally adequate access to the courts and that $1.00 is the appropriate remedy for the violation of Shango's procedural due-process rights in a 1980 disciplinary hearing.

The access issue arose in 1974, picked up three more cases along the way, became consolidated as a class-action suit in December 1977 with Shango being a class representative, and paused briefly when the parties entered a partial consent decree, August 28, 1981, requiring Stateville to make changes in its law library and legal-assistance program. Not satisfied, both Shango and the defendants, various library and State correctional officials, moved for summary judgment, but the motions were denied May 20, 1983. The parties proceeded toward trial, picking up an additional element in October 1984, a motion to enforce the 1981 consent decree.

Meanwhile, a second issue emerged in December 1980 when Shango filed a supplemental complaint, alleging numerous due-process deprivations. Some but not all of these have been dispatched. Shango v. Jurich, 681 F.2d 1091 (7th Cir.1982) (reversing and remanding Shango v. Jurich, 521 F.Supp. 1196 (N.D.Ill.1981)) ("Shango II " and "Shango I," respectively). Liability on the remaining due-process issues was resolved by entry of summary judgment April 10, 1985: only a disciplinary hearing held July 26, 1980, violated Shango's due-process rights, and the appropriate remedy was to be determined later at trial. Shango v. Jurich, 608 F.Supp. 931 (N.D.Ill.1985) ("Shango III ").

Thus, the legal-access issue and the remedy aspect of the due-process claim went to trial in September 1985. Ultimately, the district court determined that the Stateville law library and the legal-assistance program were constitutionally adequate, that only the library's record-keeping violated the consent decree, and that Shango would receive $1.00 in nominal damages. Shango v. Jurich, Nos. 74 C 3598, 76 C 3068, 76 C 3379, 77 C 0103, 75 C 3388, and 76 C 3600, 1988 WL 76996, 1988 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 7597 (N.D.Ill. July 15, 1988; filed July 18, 1988), amended, 1989 WL 75446, 1989 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 7707 (N.D.Ill. June 23, 1989; filed June 27, 1989) ("Shango IV " and "Shango V, " respectively).

ANALYSIS

This case arose under the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Thus, the district court had jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343. Its judgment was

                dated July 15, 1988, and filed July 18, 1988.   Within the ten days prescribed by Fed.R.Civ.P. 59 Shango filed motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial, and the defendants timely filed a motion to amend the judgment.   The court denied the first two motions and partially granted the last in a memorandum opinion and order dated June 23, 1989.   The corresponding minute order was dated and stamped "received for docketing" June 26, 1989, but appears not to have been docketed until the next day.   Accordingly, Shango's notice of appeal, filed July 26, 1989, survives the directive of Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(4) that the time for appeal "shall run from the time of entry of the order" denying or granting a Rule 59 motion.   See Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. State of Wisconsin, 957 F.2d 515 (7th Cir.1992).   The notice, however, does not comply with the requirement of Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(1):  "the notice of appeal required by Rule 3 shall be filed ... within 30 days after the entry of the judgment appealed from...."  Although the judgment appealed, and subsequently amended, was dated July 15, 1988, and filed July 18, 1988, it was not entered until July 28, 1989, two days after Shango filed his notice of appeal.   Nonetheless, this appeal is saved by Rule 4(a)(2), which treats notices of appeal filed after announcement of the decision but before entry of judgment "as filed after such entry and on the day thereof."   Thus, we have jurisdiction.  28 U.S.C. § 1291
                
ACCESS

Even persons who have been lawfully deprived of certain rights and imprisoned are not deprived of all rights; among the remaining rights is access to the courts. Accordingly, prison authorities are required "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." Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1498, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977) (emphasis added; footnote deleted). The "legal access program need not include any particular element ... [but] must be evaluated as a whole to ascertain its compliance with constitutional standards." Id. at 832, 97 S.Ct. at 1500 (footnote omitted). Thus, prison officials need not provide both an adequate law library and adequate legal assistants, nor must they provide any particular element. Rather, the program as a whole must pass constitutional muster; it must provide meaningful access to the courts.

Consistent with these holdings, the district court found: "Although the present system [at Stateville] is not perfect, it is constitutional and generally in compliance with the Consent Decree." Shango IV, slip op. at 69. Shango had alleged numerous infirmities in Stateville's legal-access program. The district court found the program as a whole was in compliance with constitutional standards: the law library was adequate and the prisoners had adequate access to it. The court found only one infirmity, and that one was not a constitutional infirmity but a simple breach of the part of the 1981 consent decree requiring the library to keep adequate records of its use.

On appeal Shango, nonetheless, persists in challenging several of the court's determinations on individual aspects of Stateville's law library and legal-assistance program. He directly questions both the court's interpretation of the law and its conclusions of law that applied law to fact. He indirectly questions some findings of fact but does not argue that any are clearly erroneous. Consequently, we accept the findings of fact as stated in Shango IV.

Appellate review of pure questions of law is de novo, a standard so widely accepted it is frequently applied without citation. Oneida Tribe of Indians v. State of Wisconsin, 951 F.2d 757, 760 (7th Cir.1991). Conversely, we review mixed questions of law and fact deferentially "when it appears that the district court is better positioned than the appellate court to decide the issue in question or that probing appellate scrutiny will not contribute to the clarity of legal doctrine." Salve Regina College v. Russell, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1217, 1222, 113 L.Ed.2d 190 (1991) (quotation marks and citation omitted). That is the situation The relevant facts are straightforward. Stateville is a maximum-security, state prison, housing a bit over 2300 inmates. General population inmates are assigned to one of five cellhouses. Inmates under investigation and in disciplinary segregation are sequestered in a separate cellhouse, and so are those is protective custody. New arrivals are kept one to two weeks in an orientation cellhouse, and Stateville maintains separate hospital facilities.

here: prisoners' right of access to the courts has been well elucidated by Bounds and its progeny, and Judge Williams had the opportunity to carefully scrutinize the many witnesses, their testimony, and numerous exhibits during the 15 days' trial.

The law-library collection at Stateville conforms to the minimum standards established by the American Association of Law Libraries, but access to the library is restricted. It is closed nights, weekends, and holidays and may be closed at other times due to lockdown, construction, or shortage of guards or librarians. The library seats 80 to 100 persons and contains nine, single-occupancy study cells. General population inmates may visit and freely utilize the prison's law library, optimally for 10 to 11 hours, one day each week, according to their assigned cellhouse. Segregation and protective-custody inmates may visit the library for about three hours every third to fifth weekday, but their access is limited to seven of the nine study cells. They may not enter the rest of the library and must depend on resident legal-clerks, trained and provided by the library, to secure desired books and the like from the shelves. Not every inmate gets to visit the library on his assigned day; thus, some may miss a turn. Frequently, part of the inmates' allotted library time is consumed moving en masse to and from their housing unit, with meals, in other scheduled activities, and by proverbial delays. Lastly, inmates who verify a litigation deadline within thirty days can receive additional time in the library. These facts are not in dispute; their meaning is.

Shango first argues the court improperly...

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