G. Your Right to Use the Courts

• Library: The Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook (CCR) (2021 Ed.)

G. Your Right to Use the Courts

√ The Basics: Prisoners have a fundamental right to access and use the court system.

Just like people on the outside, people in prison have a fundamental constitutional right to use the court system. This right is based on the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Under the First Amendment, you have the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances," and under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, you have a right to "due process of law." Put together, these provisions mean that you must have the opportunity to go to court if you think your rights have been violated. This right is referred to as the "right of access to the courts." Unfortunately, doing legal work in prison can be dangerous, as well as difficult, so it is important to KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

A terrible but common consequence of prisoner activism is harassment by prison officials. Officials have been known to block the preparation and filing of lawsuits, refuse to mail legal papers, take away legal research materials, and deny access to law books, all in an attempt to stop the public and the courts from learning about prisoner issues and complaints. Officials in these situations are worried about any actions that threaten to change conditions within the prison walls or limit their power. In particular, officials may seek to punish those who have gained legal skills and try to help their fellow prisoners with legal matters. Prisoners with legal skills can be particularly threatening to prison management who would like to limit the education and political training of those in prison. Some jailhouse lawyers report that officials have taken away their possessions, put them in solitary confinement on false charges, denied them parole, or transferred them to other facilities where they were no longer able to communicate with the prisoners they had been helping.

With this in mind, it is very important for those of you who are interested in both legal and political activism to keep in contact with people in the outside world. One way to do this is by making contact with people and organizations in the outside community who do prisoners' rights or other civil rights work. You can also try to find and contact reporters who may be sensitive to, and interested in, prison issues. These can include newspapers, broadcast television and radio shows, and online websites. It is always possible that organizing from the outside aimed at the correct pressure points within prison management can have a dramatic effect on conditions for you on the inside.

Certain court decisions that have established standards for prisoner legal rights can be powerful weapons in your activism efforts. These decisions can act as strong evidence to persuade others that your complaints are legitimate and reasonable, and most of all, can win in a court of law. It is sometimes possible to use favorable court rulings to support your position in non-legal challenges, such as negotiations with prison officials or in administrative requests for protective orders, as well as providing a basis for a lawsuit when other methods may not achieve your desired goals.

The Supreme Court established that prisoners have a fundamental right to access the courts in a series of important cases, including Ex parte Hull, 312 U.S. 546 (1941), Johnson v. Avery, 383 U.S. 483 (1969), and Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817 (1977). This right allows you to file a Section 1983 or Bivens Claim, habeas petitions, or to work on your criminal case. The right is so fundamental that it requires a prison to fund a way for you to have meaningful access to the court. Prisons can do this in different ways. They can give you access to a decent law library OR they can hire people to help you with your cases.

However, the right of access to the courts has very serious limitations thanks to a Supreme Court case called Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996). This case states that a prisoner cannot claim he was denied his right of access to the courts unless he shows an "actual injury." For you to show "actual injury," you have to prove that prison officials or prison policy stopped you from being able to assert a "nonfrivolous claim." In other words, even if your prison isn't allowing you to use the law library and isn't giving you legal help, you still can't necessarily win a lawsuit about it. To win, courts usually require you to show that you had a legitimate claim or case that you lost, or were unable to bring, due to some action by prison officials, or due to the inadequacy of your access to legal assistance.

You can show actual injury in a lot of different ways. In Myers v. Hundley, 101 F.3d 542 (8th Cir. 1996), for example, the court held that a prison policy requiring prisoners to choose between purchasing hygiene supplies and stamps to file legal documents might violate the right to access the courts if it caused a prisoner to miss a filing deadline. And in Benjamin v. Kerik, 102 F. Supp. 2d 157 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), the court found actual injury (though it ultimately denied relief) when a prisoner could not locate cases cited by defendants in the...