Hoppins v. Wallace, 84-7392
| Decision Date | 28 January 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-7392,84-7392 |
| Parties | Glennon HOPPINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Governor George C. WALLACE, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Non-Argument Calendar. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Jack M. Curtis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, Ala., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Before RONEY, FAY and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges.
Glennon Hoppins argues on appeal in his 42 U.S.C.A. Secs. 1983, 1985 suit that his right of access to the courts requires that indigent inmates be permitted to mail unlimited legal correspondence at state expense. The state correctional officers contend their stamp policy permitting each indigent inmate two free 20-cent stamps a week and requiring them to pay for additional postage out of their own funds provides adequate access to the courts. The district court held that two free stamps a week provided Hoppins with adequate access to the courts. We affirm.
In Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 824-25, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1496-97, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), the Supreme Court held that it "is indisputable that indigent inmates must be provided at state expense with paper and pen to draft legal documents, with notarial services to authenticate them, and with stamps to mail them." The Tenth Circuit has interpreted Bounds not to require states "to pay the postage on every item of legal mail each and every prisoner wishes to send." Twyman v. Crisp, 584 F.2d 352, 359 (10th Cir.1978). The Twyman Court determined that the rights of prisoners must be balanced with budgetary constraints. It did not establish the minimum requirements a state must meet to provide indigent prisoners with adequate access to courts but focused instead on whether the individual plaintiff before it had been denied access. 584 F.2d at 359. Since Twyman's litigation about which he sought access was not dismissed and no court sanction was imposed, his delay in mailing due to the prison postage policy was held to have not denied him access to the courts.
The present Alabama prison policy of furnishing inmates with postage for two free letters a week was a direct result of a federal court order entered in Pugh v. Locke, 406 F.Supp. 318, 334 (M.D.Ala.1976), aff'd in part sub nom. Newman v. State of Alabama, 559 F.2d 283 (5th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 438 U.S. 915, 98 S.Ct. 3144, 57 L.Ed.2d 1160 (1978). In Pugh, Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. originally required...
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