Howland v. Kilquist

• Decision Date: 09 November 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1026,86-1026
• Citation: 833 F.2d 639
• Parties: William Lee HOWLAND, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William KILQUIST and Gene Truitt, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 639

833 F.2d 639

William Lee HOWLAND, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William KILQUIST and Gene Truitt, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-1026.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 13, 1987.

Decided Nov. 9, 1987.

Steven H. Steinglass, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law LB40, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellant.

Robyn G. Cox, Moser Marsalek, et al., St. Louis, Mo., for defendants-appellees.

Before POSNER and COFFEY, Circuit Judges, and GRANT, Senior District Judge. ^*

GRANT, Senior District Judge.

William Lee Howland, proceeding pro se, brought suit against the defendants, William Kilquist, Sheriff of Jackson County, Illinois, and Gene Truitt, Chief Jail Administrator of the Jackson County Jail, under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 alleging denial of meaningful access to the courts and reasonable access to other legal materials. Howland also alleged that the defendants transferred him to a maximum security prison and placed him in disciplinary isolation in retaliation for his assertion of his right to meaningful access to the courts. On defendants' motion, the district court granted partial summary judgment with respect to Howland's claimed deprivation of legal materials and legal mail. At the conclusion of trial on the remaining issues, the district court entered judgment for the defendants. Howland now appeals the district court's entry of both partial summary judgment and final judgment. His appeal also encompasses the district court's denial of appointed counsel. For reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. The Facts

Officers from the Carbondale, Illinois, Police Department arrested Howland on July 25, 1983, and the State charged him with armed robbery. On July 26, Howland was placed in the Jackson County Jail, where he remained until August 15, 1983. On that date, Howland was transferred to Menard Correctional Center for a six-week period. He returned to Jackson County Jail on October 1, 1983, to await his trial on the armed robbery charges. He was convicted of the criminal charges on December 2, 1983.

At the time of his arrest on July 25, 1983, Howland was proceeding pro se in several pending civil cases in the federal courts in Illinois. On July 29, 1983, the Jackson County Circuit Court appointed attorney Thomas Mansfield to defend Howland in the armed robbery case. However, apparently because of his dissatisfaction with the performance of counsel, Howland filed a motion to proceed pro se in the criminal case. On October 13, 1983, the court granted the motion but ordered Mansfield to remain ready as "standby counsel." Howland was subsequently tried and convicted of the offense charged.

Howland filed this Section 1983 action against the defendants on October 3, 1984, and in December 1984, filed a motion requesting appointment of counsel, which was denied. The district court, however, reserved the right to request counsel for Howland at a later stage, if appropriate. The defendants filed a joint motion for summary judgment on May 9, 1985, to which Howland responded, and then renewed his motion for appointment of counsel. On August 14, 1985, Magistrate Gerald B. Cohn, sitting as district judge by consent of the parties, granted partial summary judgment for the defendants on Howland's claims that the defendants had unconstitutionally prevented him from receiving legal documents sent through the mail, and had denied him access to legal supplies and material. On August 27, 1985, the district court denied Howland's renewed motion for appointment of counsel. After a three-day bench trial, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants on the remaining issues, entering a final order on December 18, 1985, and a final judgment the following day.

In his appeal from the final judgment, Howland presents three arguments: (1) that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendants on the issue of access to legal materials and mail; (2) that the court's findings with respect to the retaliation and disciplinary isolation issues were clearly erroneous; and, (3) that the court erred in denying Howland's motions for appointment of counsel. We discuss each of these arguments in turn.

II. Access to the Courts

Howland claimed that soon after his arrest he instructed his fiance, Ms. Stella Johnson, to forward all litigation-related documents she had received, photocopied sections of the Illinois Revised Statutes and Code of Criminal Procedure, and financial aid records that he considered useful for his preliminary hearing on the armed robbery charge. Howland insisted that when these materials arrived by mail at the Jackson County Jail, they were summarily returned to Ms. Johnson. Moreover, Howland contended that he requested jail officials to provide him with bond paper, carbon paper, ink pens and law books, for the purpose of preparing pretrial motions in the armed robbery case and other pending litigation. He claimed that the jail officials' refusal to provide these materials deprived him of meaningful access to the courts.

The district court found that, while the materials Howland had requested from Ms. Johnson would have been privileged and thus available to him if they had been received from his court-appointed attorney or directly from the court, the contents of the packages from Ms. Johnson were neither identified as privileged material, nor were they provided by an attorney or the courts. The district court concluded that jail officials were not required to conjecture about the contents of incoming mail, and that legitimate security interests justified the rejection of such unprivileged mail.

With respect to the alleged deprivation of stationery supplies and other legal materials, the district court found that Howland had failed to demonstrate that the deprivation or restriction of such materials in any way impeded his access to the courts in either his criminal case or his pending civil litigation. The court concluded that, absent such a showing, Howland had failed to state a claim for deprivation of his right to meaningful access to the courts, and accordingly granted summary judgment for the defendants.

Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c) provides that a district court shall grant summary judgment "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." When the facts are disputed, the parties must produce proper documentary evidence to support their contentions, and may not rest on mere allegations in the pleadings, Posey v. Skyline Corp., 702 F.2d 102, 105 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 960, 104 S.Ct. 392, 78 L.Ed.2d 336 (1983), or upon conclusory statements in affidavits. First Commodity Traders v. Heinold Commodities, 766 F.2d 1007, 1011 (7th Cir.1985). In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, all reasonable inferences from the evidence presented must be drawn in favor of the opposing party. Matsushita Electric Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356-57, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986); Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 157, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970); United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U.S. 654, 655, 82 S.Ct. 993, 994, 8 L.Ed.2d 176 (1962); Munson v. Friske, 754 F.2d 683, 690 (7th Cir.1985); International Administrators, Inc. v. Life Insurance Company of North America, 753 F.2d 1373, 1378 (7th Cir.1985).

Howland challenges the district court's entry of summary judgment on three grounds. He argues first that a factual dispute exists as to whether the defendants actually denied his request for legal materials and returned the materials mailed to Ms. Johnson which precludes summary judgment. We do not agree.

The mere existence of a factual dispute will not bar summary judgment unless "the disputed fact is outcome determinative under governing law." Egger v. Phillips, 710 F.2d 292, 296 (7th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 918, 104 S.Ct. 284, 78 L.Ed.2d 262 (1983). The factual disputes which Howland raises are not "outcome determinative," for even if we assume, as we must, that the facts as stated by Howland are correct, i.e., that the defendants denied his request for legal materials and returned the materials sent by Ms. Johnson, Howland has still failed to sufficiently state a claim for denial of access to the courts.

Howland maintains in his second argument that he was not required to show that his access to the courts was actually impeded by the denial of certain legal materials in order to succeed on the merits of his claim. Howland's understanding of the law is incorrect. This court has consistently found that some showing of detriment caused by the challenged conduct must be made in order to succeed on a claim alleging a deprivation of the right to meaningful access to the courts. Jones v. Franzen, 697 F.2d 801, 803 (7th Cir.1983); see Bach v. Coughlin, 508 F.2d 303, 308 (7th Cir.1974). Our position on this matter was most recently restated in Hossman v. Spradlin, 812 F.2d 1019, 1021-22, n. 2 (7th Cir.1987), where we stated:

We are ... firmly of the opinion that, in order to proceed to trial and survive a motion for summary judgment, a plaintiff should be required, no matter how minimally, to allege some quantum of detriment caused by the challenged conduct of state officials resulting in the interruption and/or delay of plaintiff's pending or contemplated litigation.

Howland failed to present any evidence in the district court which would demonstrate that his access to the courts in either his criminal or civil cases had been in any way impeded by the restrictions on, or deprivations of, the stationery supplies, law books and other legal materials which he sought. In his affidavit in opposition to summary judgment, Howland asserts that the defendants' "unreasonable interference" with his...