Lehn v. Holmes

• Decision Date: 14 April 2004
• Docket Number: No. 01-1957.,01-1957.
• Parties: Donald A. LEHN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael L. HOLMES, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

364 F.3d 862

Donald A. LEHN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael L. HOLMES, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-1957.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 13, 2003.

Decided April 14, 2004.

Brian E. Casey (argued), Barnes & Thornburg, South Bend, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Carol A. Cera (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before ROVNER, DIANE P. WOOD, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Donald Lehn knows a lot about the ill effects of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. He has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and is a former Resident Research Assistant in the Laboratory of Molecular Carcinogenesis in the Division of Cancer Etiology, National Cancer Institute, which is affiliated with the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland. Lehn's current interest in smoke is, however, personal rather than professional. He is currently serving time in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), and he has sued to challenge both certain IDOC practices that allegedly are denying him his right of access to the courts and IDOC policies that tolerate excessively high levels of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the state's prisons. Lehn's pro se complaint was dismissed by the district court because the judge believed his claims were either rendered moot after Lehn was transferred to a different prison facility or were unripe for adjudication. In the alternative, the court granted the prison officials' motion to dismiss Lehn's access-to-courts claim for failure to state a claim under FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). We agree with Lehn that his access claim is ripe for judicial consideration and that both the access-to-courts and the ETS parts of his complaint state claims for which relief may be granted. Therefore, we reverse and remand this case for further proceedings.

I

Lehn has been incarcerated in the State of Illinois since January 1996. To date, he has been housed in at least three correctional facilities: the Pontiac Correctional Center, the Big Muddy River Correctional Center, and the Graham Correctional Center. Lehn was incarcerated at Big Muddy River for four years, during which time he filed this complaint. While his complaint was pending before a magistrate judge, in August 2000, he was transferred to Graham, where he is currently incarcerated.

While Lehn was at Big Muddy River, he repeatedly asked to be assigned to a cell with a non-smoking cellmate, but his requests were denied. Lehn complained that exposure to his cellmates' tobacco smoke caused him to suffer headaches and nausea. His transfer to Graham accomplished nothing, from this standpoint. Once again, he was housed with a smoking cellmate despite his request for a non-smoker. In an affidavit, Lehn attested that during the first five and one-half months of his stay at Graham, he had a non-smoking cellmate for only two and one-half days. Throughout this time, Lehn communicated his strenuous objection to what he perceived as an IDOC-wide policy concerning the use of tobacco products and the exposure of inmates to ETS. He complained that this exposure to second-hand smoke "threatens the plaintiff's future health and causes the plaintiff to suffer from continual [sic] smoking related effects — headaches and burning eyes."

Smoke was not Lehn's only problem, however. In October 1996, Lehn received copies of two Maryland arrest warrants dated October 20, 1995, and October 11, 1996. The first arrest warrant was also lodged as a detainer for Lehn's continued detention on the Maryland charges. Then, on June 30, 1997, Deputy Maryland State's Attorney Matthew Campbell issued a request for temporary custody over Lehn to Jack Hartwig, who at the time was the warden of Big Muddy River. This request was made pursuant to Article IV(A) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, in order to bring Lehn to trial in Maryland. (The Interstate Agreement on Detainers is an interstate compact among 48 states. It establishes standard procedures to help states resolve outstanding criminal charges against prisoners who are incarcerated in a different state. See New York v. Hill, 528 U.S. 110, 111, 120 S.Ct. 659, 145 L.Ed.2d 560 (2000); see also United States v. Ross, 243 F.3d 375, 375 n. 2 (7th Cir.2001).) The request for temporary custody states that Lehn "is under indictment in the County of Montgomery," Maryland. The record does not contain a response to this request for temporary custody from Warden Hartwig.

In response to the Maryland arrest warrants, Lehn filed three motions in Maryland for the appointment of counsel. The first was filed in July 1997, and the last was filed in January 2001. His efforts were unavailing: Maryland neither appointed a lawyer for him nor did it even respond to any of his requests. In his final letter to the Montgomery County State's Attorney, Lehn explained that he had learned second-hand that his case might not be prosecuted by the County. He asked for confirmation of this rumor and explained that he hoped that Maryland would withdraw the warrant against him if it was not going to prosecute him. Critically for our purposes, Lehn claimed that the outstanding warrant caused him to receive a higher security classification within Illinois's correctional system. According to Lehn, this higher security classification also kept him from getting a job in the prison industries program and affected his housing assignments.

Lehn's initial complaint contained five counts, three of which were dismissed by the district court under the mandatory screening process for prisoner lawsuits contained in 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Lehn does not appeal the dismissal of these three counts. The two surviving counts focus on Lehn's fundamental right of access to the courts and his right to conditions of confinement that do not violate the minimum standards set by the Eighth Amendment — as applied here, his right to an environment that is not filled with dangerous levels of ETS. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss Lehn's access-to-courts count. The case was referred to a magistrate judge, who recommended that the district court deny the motion to dismiss and suggested that the court instead request additional briefing by the parties addressing whether Lehn's transfer to Graham rendered his access-to-courts and Eighth Amendment claims moot.

The district court rejected the magistrate judge's recommendations and entered an order dismissing Lehn's remaining two claims. It rejected the ETS claim first because it concluded that the claim became moot when Lehn was transferred to Graham, and in the alternative for failure to state a claim under FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). The district court also declined to exercise jurisdiction over Lehn's access-to-courts claim because the judge believed the claim was unripe. Alternatively, the court held that Lehn's complaint failed to state a claim under FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6) for violation of his right of access to the courts. With the assistance of counsel appointed by this court, Lehn appeals the dismissal of his complaint.

II

A

The Supreme Court has long recognized a prisoner's fundamental right of access to the courts. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 821, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977); see also Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 350, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996). As this court has noted in the past, "[w]ithout this right, all other rights a prisoner may possess are illusory." Corgain v. Miller, 708 F.2d 1241, 1247 (7th Cir.1983). But the right of access to the courts is not an unlimited one; it assures only "meaningful access to the courts." Bounds, 430 U.S. at 823, 97 S.Ct. 1491; see also In re Chapman, 328 F.3d 903, 905 (7th Cir.2003). Moreover, the right is "ancillary to the underlying claim, without which a plaintiff cannot have suffered injury by being shut out of court." Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413 (2002). In other words, the right of access to the courts is tied to and limited by a prisoner's right to "vindication for a separate and distinct right to seek judicial relief for some wrong." Id.

Lehn raises five specific complaints in connection with his general access-to-courts claim: (1) Illinois's denial of access to Maryland legal materials has hampered his ability to respond to the pending Maryland criminal charges; (2) his rights are violated by the restrictions on the amount of time he may spend in the prison library; (3) the restrictions on the quantity of photocopied legal materials he may store in his prison cell are also unlawful; (4) he has received inadequate legal assistance from the prison library staff, which resulted in the filing of a premature appeal in an unrelated case; and (5) the prison's denial of his request to purchase a laptop computer and CD-ROM materials has interfered with his ability successfully to litigate his ETS claim. The district court dismissed the access claim in its entirety. With respect to the Maryland legal materials, the court concluded that the claim was either not ripe for judicial review, or, alternatively, that it failed to state a claim on which relief may be granted. We review this decision de novo. See Metro. Milwaukee Ass'n of Commerce v. Milwaukee County, 325 F.3d 879, 881 (7th Cir.2003) (reviewing dismissal on ripeness grounds de novo); Ortloff v. United States, 335 F.3d 652, 655 (7th Cir.2003) (reviewing dismissal under FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6) de novo). In this appeal, Lehn (rightly) focuses only on his right of access to the Maryland legal materials; we similarly limit our discussion, as none of the rest of his arguments has any merit.

We should first say a word about why Illinois is the proper defendant in this case, given the fact that Lehn is seeking Maryland legal materials he needs to attack a Maryland indictment and warrants. Why is Maryland not the only proper defendant? Once the indictment was returned there,...