Battle v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 21 January 1980
• Docket Number: 78-1318 and 78-1889,Nos. 79-1709,s. 79-1709
• Citation: 614 F.2d 251
• Parties: Bobby BATTLE et al., a Class Action, Plaintiffs-Appellants, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, Appellant, v. Park ANDERSON et al., Defendants-Appellees. Bobby BATTLE et al., a Class Action, Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, Appellee, v. STATE BOARD OF CORRECTIONS, Frank E. Carey, Jr., President; Leroy W. Kirk, Patricia Montgomery, Gary M. Cook, Chester T. Curtin, Seth Millington, William Thompson, as members, and their successors, Defendants-Appellants. Bobby BATTLE, Plaintiff-Appellee, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, Appellee, v. Park J. ANDERSON, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary; Leo McCracken, Director, Department of Corrections, State of Oklahoma; Roy Sprinkler, Deputy Director of Institutions; Sam C. Johnston, Deputy Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary; Captain Black, Correctional Officer, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Defendants- Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 251

614 F.2d 251

Bobby BATTLE et al., a Class Action, Plaintiffs-Appellants, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, Appellant, v. Park ANDERSON et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Bobby BATTLE et al., a Class Action, Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, Appellee, v. STATE BOARD OF CORRECTIONS, Frank E. Carey, Jr., President;

Leroy W. Kirk, Patricia Montgomery, Gary M. Cook, Chester T.

Curtin, Seth Millington, William Thompson, as members, and

their successors, Defendants-Appellants.

Bobby BATTLE, Plaintiff-Appellee, United States of America, Plaintiff-Intervenor, Appellee, v. Park J. ANDERSON, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary; Leo

McCracken, Director, Department of Corrections, State of

Oklahoma; Roy Sprinkler, Deputy Director of Institutions;

Sam C. Johnston, Deputy Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary;

Captain Black, Correctional Officer, Oklahoma State

Penitentiary, Defendants- Appellants.

Nos. 79-1709, 78-1318 and 78-1889.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

Argued Nov. 27, 1979.

Decided Jan. 21, 1980.

Louis W. Bullock of Chapel, Wilkinson, Riggs, Abney & Keefer, Tulsa, Okla. (American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, Tulsa, Okla., with him on brief), and Carl G. Stevens of Warren, Ricks & Mayfield, of American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Okla., for plaintiffs-appellees-appellants Bobby Battle, et al.

Irving Gornstein, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C. (Drew S. Days, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dennis J. Dimsey, Brian K. Landsberg, Jessica Dunsay Silver, and Walter W. Barnett, Attys., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., and Julian K. Fite, U. S. Atty., Oklahoma City, Okla., on brief), for plaintiff-intervenor-appellee United States of America.

John Fischer, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Okla. (Jan Eric Cartwright, Atty. Gen. of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Okla., with him on brief), for defendants-appellants Park J. Anderson and State Board of Corrections of the State of Oklahoma, et al.

Before BARRETT, DOYLE and McKAY, Circuit Judges.

BARRETT, Circuit Judge.

The genesis of these consolidated cases is the deteriorated physical and internal conditions surrounding Oklahoma's state penal system which were highlighted following a disastrous riot at the State Penitentiary at McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1973. That riot resulted in $20 million in property damage and tragic loss of lives. The jurisdiction of the District Court from whence the instant appeals are brought, was originally invoked on April 24, 1972, when Bobby Battle, then an inmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, filed a Pro se civil rights action. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma provided Battle with legal counsel. Following the 1973 riot, the United States was granted the right of intervention pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000h-2. The District Court has since labored through days of hearings, volumes of pleadings, reports, documents, exhibits and memorandums involving controversial issues of overcrowding, sanitation, fire safety, health standards, racial discrimination, segregation, disciplinary rules, and many other matters.

Case No. 79-1709

This appeal is taken, in a class action proceeding, challenging that portion of the District Court's Order of May 4, 1979, relating to alleged inadequacies in providing the State's inmates access to the courts. Some factual background is in order.

On March 15, 1979, this Court declined to affirm, reverse or modify the District Court's Order of September 11, 1978, which directed remedial "all-inclusive" action to be taken by Defendants, officials of the State of Oklahoma, for convenience hereinafter simply referred to as State of Oklahoma or State, in upgrading its penal system, with attendant specific compliance deadlines. In light of the protracted litigative history and the tremendous public interest involved in the subject matter, we opined that upon remand the District Court give careful and considered treatment to those remedies urged by the State of Oklahoma. We retained jurisdiction and directed the District Court to certify a supplemental record following a further hearing or hearings to be conducted. Battle v. Anderson, 594 F.2d 786 (10th Cir. 1979).

Following a pretrial conference, the District Court conducted hearings on remand on April 19, 20 and 23, 1979, predicated on State of Oklahoma's Motion to modify the Order of September 11, 1978. The cooperative atmosphere was specially observed by the District Court in its "Order Approving Defendants' Proposed Plan" dated May 4, 1979:

Defendants' increasing commitment to meaningful prison reform was evidenced by constructive, enlightening appearances in open courtroom proceedings by Oklahoma's governor, The Honorable George Nigh; the President Pro Tempore of the State Senate, The Honorable Gene Howard; and the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, The Honorable Dan Draper. All pledged strong support to a proposed compliance plan submitted by the defendants.

From this suit's inception, the court's hope has been that proper judicial identification of applicable constitutional standards would result in vigorous, effective state action apart from an exact court mandate. These "good faith" commitments from the State's elected leadership persuade the court that the defendants will now proceed to effectively resolve those fundamental, numerous deficiencies which have persisted so long in Oklahoma's state penal facilities. Overcrowding continues, as does noncompliance with basic sanitation, fire safety, water, electrical, plumbing, ventilation, and sewage system standards, Inter alia. Aspects of the inmates basic health care needs remain neglected. Many inmates are still denied sufficient work and exercise.

Understandably, inhumane confinement conditions created by 70 years of neglect cannot be remedied overnight, but they can and must be rectified as expeditiously as reason deems practical. The Constitution so mandates. The defendants now propose in good faith to so do.

We would be remiss, indeed, if we did not acknowledge the commendable postures displayed by the District Court and the respective parties in addressing the difficult problems on remand. There were obvious "good faith" endeavors to resolve them.

The sole issue presented for our review challenging the District Court's Order of May 4, 1979, relates to inmate access to the courts.

The District Court's Order of September 11, 1978, required, Inter alia, that the State of Oklahoma provide civilian legal advisors for its prisoners. Case Number 78-1889 constituted an appeal from the Court's September 11th order wherein the appellant, State of Oklahoma, raised many contentions of trial court error. This order was modified, following the remand hearings, by the District Court's Order of May 4, 1979. All of the challenges directed to the September 11 order have been voluntarily abandoned by the respective parties, and the only issue now before us is that part of the trial court's order of May 4, 1979, wherein the court found that the State's access to the courts program, which did not provide for civilian legal advisors, was in compliance with the mandates of the United States Constitution and Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). The District Court specially found:

IV. ACCESS TO COURTS

13. With the addition of the law library at Lexington, defendant's current approach to providing legal services for prisoners appears acceptable, if perhaps imperfect. The evidence in this case indicates that providing inmates with professional legal advice from outside the prison might well serve the best interests of both the inmates and the State. See Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1976) (sic).

On appeal, Battle contends: (1) State's plan for providing access to court does not provide access which is adequate, effective and meaningful, (2) State's plan does not provide adequate and meaningful access to courts for those inmates who are unable to use a law library, and (3) the trial court must grant plaintiffs relief from the serious inadequacies which were previously found to exist in State's access to courts program.

The focus is Bounds v. Smith, supra. There the Supreme Court re-affirmed its holding in Younger v. Gilmore, 404 U.S. 15, 92 S.Ct. 250, 30 L.Ed.2d 142 (1971) (per curiam) that States must protect the constitutional rights of prisoners to access to the courts ". . . by providing them with law libraries or alternative sources of legal knowledge." Bounds v. Smith, supra, 430 U.S. at 817, 97 S.Ct. at 1493. The Court also referred to its decision in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). The Court there held that ignorant and illiterate inmates who had access to an adequate law library were also entitled to avail themselves of the volunteered assistance from their literate fellow inmates in the presentation of their written claims to the courts. In Bounds, supra, the Court stated 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." (Emphasis supplied). 430 U.S. at p. 828, 97 S.Ct. at p. 1498.

Battle contends that when the District Court, upon remand, approved the State's plan, it did so without withdrawing its earlier findings or indicating what evidence, if any, it was relying upon in "changing its position". To be sure, the Court's Order of September 11, 1978, contained these findings/conclusions:

This problem has been before this court more than 4 years. The Court's experience with the problem has convinced it that defendants' reliance merely on law libraries cannot ameliorate the inmates' lack of meaningful access to courts.

By September 1, 1979, defendants...