Jackson v. Florida Dept. of Corrections, SC92827.

• Decision Date: 04 May 2000
• Docket Number: No. SC92827.,SC92827.
• Citation: 790 So.2d 381
• Parties: Douglas M. JACKSON, Sr., Petitioner, v. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

790 So.2d 381

Douglas M. JACKSON, Sr., Petitioner, v. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent.

No. SC92827.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 4, 2000.

Order Denying Rehearing January 18, 2001.

Douglas M. Jackson, Sr., Starke, FL, pro se.

Louis A. Vargas, Donna M. La Plante, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Petitioner's motion for rehearing is granted in part. The opinion issued in this case on November 18, 1999, is withdrawn, and the following opinion is substituted.

Douglas M. Jackson, Sr., petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(8), Fla. Const.

FACTS

Jackson is a prisoner currently serving a life sentence for multiple murders committed in 1981. On April 20, 1998, Jackson filed a petition for writ of mandamus against the Florida Department of Corrections ("the Department"). On April 23, 1998, this Court granted Jackson's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. However, upon further review, it came to this Court's attention that Jackson had not complied with the requirements of section 57.085(7), Florida Statutes (1997)¹ (Prisoner Indigency Statute), which provides in full:

A prisoner who has twice in the preceding 3 years been adjudicated indigent under this section, certified indigent under s. 57.081, or authorized to proceed as an indigent under 28 U.S.C. s.1915 by a federal court may not be adjudicated indigent to pursue a new suit, action, claim, proceeding, or appeal without first obtaining leave of court. In a request for leave of court, the prisoner must provide a complete listing of each suit, action, claim, proceeding, or appeal brought by the prisoner or intervened in by the prisoner in any court or other adjudicatory forum in the preceding 5 years. The prisoner must attach to a request for leave of court a copy of each complaint, petition, or other document purporting to commence a lawsuit and a record of disposition of the proceeding.

Accordingly, on September 18, 1998, this Court vacated its earlier order granting Jackson's motion to proceed in forma pauperis and denied the motion. This Court instructed Jackson that the denial was without prejudice to his filing another motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis which complied with the requirements of section 57.085(7).

In our opinion filed November 18, 1999, we found Jackson's subsequently filed motion insufficient as well, since it still did not comply with the requirements of the statute. In that opinion, while we applauded the Legislature's attempt to curtail the filing of frivolous inmate petitions, we also expressed our concern that strict enforcement of the copy requirement part of the statute might result in a long, drawn-out factual inquiry. Such an inquiry might be necessary, we noted, if an inmate were to allege inability to comply with the requirement because the inmate had been forced by prison officials to dispose of his or her copies of prior proceedings, especially if prison officials asserted that the inmate had not been forced to dispose of the documents. In our prior opinion we also went to great lengths to stress that enforcement of the copy requirement portion of the statute had imposed an "administrative nightmare" on this Court and the judicial system as a whole. We asked the Legislature to attempt to remedy this situation. No action has been forthcoming.

Jackson now asserts in his motion for rehearing that the prison forced him to do away with his copies of pleadings in all his prior proceedings, so he cannot comply with the copy requirement of the statute. The Department responds that it never forced Jackson to do away with his legal papers. In Jackson's reply he again asserts that his documents were destroyed and requests an evidentiary hearing. In other words, our original concern has come into fruition—we are now faced with the unhappy possibility that we must now conduct some sort of fact-finding inquiry (or appoint a referee) to determine what documents have been destroyed and what documents have not been destroyed. Again, under the statute, all this must be done before this Court can even begin to examine the merits of the petition itself. This outcome clearly results in another administrative burden placed on this Court by the copy requirement part of the statute. Thus, we are now forced to withdraw our original opinion in this case.

ANALYSIS

In our original opinion in this case we reaffirmed the long-standing proposition that the existence of a right for indigents to proceed without payment of costs is a substantive one and is properly provided for by the Legislature. See Amos v. Department of Health & Rehabilitative Servs., 416 So.2d 841 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982)

. We also noted that the right could be properly limited by the Legislature, including a requirement that inmates contribute toward the costs of their lawsuits and ultimately pay for the lawsuits in full if they subsequently become able to do so. See § 57.085(5), Fla.Stat. (1999).² We reaffirm that proposition today. See generally Kleinschmidt v. Estate of Kleinschmidt, 392 So.2d 66 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981); Lee v. City of Winter Haven, 386 So.2d 268 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980); Hillman v. Federal Nat'l Mortgage Ass'n, 375 So.2d 336, 337 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979). We again applaud the efforts of the Legislature in this regard and intend to fully enforce the substantive payment-related provisions of the Prisoner Indigency Statute.³

A statute can, however, have both substantive provisions and procedural requirements. If the procedural requirements conflict with or interfere with the procedural mechanisms of the court system, they are unconstitutional under both a separation of powers analysis, and because formulating procedures for granting in forma pauperis status is the exclusive province of the Supreme Court pursuant to the rulemaking authority vested in it by the Florida Constitution. See art. II, § 3, art. V, § 2, Fla. Const.; see also State v. Garcia, 229 So.2d 236, 238 (Fla.1969)

(noting that procedural law has been described as the legal machinery by which substantive law is made effective); Z & O Realty Assocs., Inc. v. Lakow, 519 So.2d 3, 5 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987); State v. J.A., Jr., 367 So.2d 702, 703 (Fla. 2d DCA 1979) (stating that substantive law, the responsibility of the Legislature, prescribes duties and rights while procedural law, determined by the Supreme Court, concerns the means and methods to apply and enforce those duties and rights).

This Court has already promulgated a rule which regulates the procedure for seeking indigency status. The prerequisite imposed by the Prisoner Indigency Statute that inmates file copies of their prior actions in the court before the court may even consider making an indigency determination is an additional procedure imposed by the statute which does not appear in this Court's rule and conflicts with that rule.

Further, since prisoners attempting to comply with the copy requirement are not required to send copies to the State, we are assuming that the copy requirement subsection was included in the statute so that the courts could determine whether an inmate had previously filed a frivolous or successive petition. While we appreciate the effort the Legislature appears to have made in an attempt to lessen the judicial workload, the effort has had the opposite effect. The copy requirement has greatly increased the courts' workload because it sets forth new procedures for the granting of indigency status.

This Court's clerk's office has spent countless hours explaining the copy requirement to inmates, receiving partial submissions and sending out additional letters informing inmates that they still have not submitted all of the required copies. The copy requirement has greatly increased this Court's workload as a whole as well. We have, on a number of occasions, been forced to request preliminary responses when inmates asserted that the Department of Corrections would not make the copies necessary for compliance with the statute. This is only one example of the many occasions in which this Court was called upon to spend its valuable time dealing with matters completely unrelated to the merits of the litigant's case.

The copy requirement must surely be a burden on the Department of Corrections as well since even assuming an inmate has not lost possession of one set of the copies of his or her prior legal actions, if the inmate has insufficient funds to pay to have the prison make additional copies for the court, the Department is still required to make the photocopies. See Fla.Admin.Code R. 33-602.405(4). Further, it is not uncommon for an inmate's prior pleadings to consist of several hundred or even thousands of pages. Clearly, this requirement must be a tremendous burden on the Department and, ultimately, on the taxpayer.

Moreover, while inmate pleadings are often difficult to read as they are usually handwritten, these pleadings are many times more difficult to read when they have been photocopied numerous times. A large number of the photocopies we routinely receive from inmates are absolutely useless because they are completely illegible. Even if we could read them, that would increase exponentially the amount of time it takes us to examine and rule upon each case. The longer the petition, the more time it takes to review and the more time it takes for this Court to render a decision. In other words, the copy requirement delays the administration of justice.

Finally, once a litigious inmate has actually complied with the statute by sending in his or her thousands of pages of prior pleadings, this Court's clerk must place it with the court file and, due to its tremendous size and weight, literally wheel the file up to each justice's office, where the stacks of pleadings must be reviewed. Ultimately, once the case is completed, the storage of these large files also poses problems.

If the copy requirement...