Supreme Court Curbs Appeals by ‘Paupers’

The story of Clarence Earl Gideon was a classic tale of the Supreme Court and its concern with justice for all. Locked in prison and too poor to afford a lawyer, Gideon wrote out an appeal in longhand and mailed it to the high court.

It prompted the Gideon vs. Wainwright ruling of 1963 which declared that all persons on trial are entitled to a lawyer.

These days, not many Clarence Gideons get their appeals heard by the Supreme Court and few win.

And on Monday, the justices announced they will no longer routinely accept all the appeals filed by those who are too poor to pay.

In an unsigned, 6-3 order, the court said it would reject without consideration appeal petitions from the poor that are “frivolous or malicious.”

The practical impact of the new rule is not clear. The justices said they would consider any appeal with merit and they did not define “frivolous.” The new rule appears targeted at inmates who deluge the court with dozens of petitions.

But the three liberal dissenters chided their colleagues as abandoning a vital principle of justice in order to save time for the young law clerks who initially review appeals and often recommend they be ignored.

“This court once had a great tradition: ‘All men and women are entitled to their day in court,’ ” said Justice Thurgood Marshall. Justices John Paul Stevens and Harry A. Blackmun said the majority was ignoring “the symbolic interest in preserving equal access to the court for both the rich and the poor.”

Monday’s order follows a series of recent moves by the court under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to close the door to some claims.

Two weeks ago, the court ruled, by the same 6-3 margin, that it would not routinely give Death Row inmates a second chance to challenge their conviction or sentence in a habeas corpus petition. The day before, the court let stand two judges’ orders fining civil rights attorneys for having filed “frivolous” discrimination claims in a federal court.

The new rule concerns what are known as “paupers’ petitions” at the high court. Normally, those who seek to have their appeals considered must pay a $300 filing fee and submit 40 copies of printed briefs to the court clerk.

But those who say they are destitute, typically prison inmates, are permitted to file a single copy of a petition without paying the fees. These are classified as in forma pauperis.

Since July 1 of last year, 1,636 paid appeals have been filed at the court, and 90 of them have been granted a review.

During the same time period, 2,818 unpaid cases classified as paupers’ petitions have been received, but only 22 have been granted a review. In recent years, as the nation’s prison population has soared, the number of paupers’ petitions has risen steadily.

Though few of these paupers’ petitions win a review, they have resulted in major rulings on the death penalty and criminal law. On Monday, for example, the court said it would again consider the rights of child abuse defendants. The case arose from a pauper’s petition filed by an Illinois inmate, Randall White.

Law clerks say that both types of appeals--paid and unpaid--are handled the same. The clerks read through the lower court record and write a memo for the justices recommending whether the case should be heard. Justice William J. Brennan Jr., who retired in July, was the last of the justices who personally read through all the appeals.

On most Mondays, the justices release a long list of appeals which have been considered and dismissed without comment. This is the fate of 99 of 100 paupers’ petitions, as well as most of the paid petitions.

Recently, the justices have displayed a new testiness to those inmates who file repetitive appeals. In January, the court said on a 6-3 vote that it would no longer accept paupers’ petitions from Michael Sindram, a Maryland man who had filed 42 appeals over three years. The court also said on Monday that it would not consider appeals filed by John Robert Demos, a Washington state inmate, because he had already filed 32 appeals with the court.

The new rule makes official what has been implied in the past. Petitions which are “frivolous or malicious” will be rejected by the court’s clerks and not considered at all by the justices or their law clerks, it says. The justices did not say how they would enforce the new rule.

“It is vital that the right to file in forma pauperis not be encumbered by those who abuse the integrity of our process by frivolous filings, particularly those few persons whose filings are repetitive with the obvious effect of burdening the office of the clerk and other members of the court staff,” the court said.

The new rule takes effect July 1. Those approving the rule change were Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Byron R. White, Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter.

Meanwhile, in other actions, the court:

--Agreed to decide whether an accused child molester has a right to confront in court the child victim if he or she is capable of testifying. The court has allowed parents, doctors and social workers to testify in place of children who are determined to be too young or too traumatized to testify. In this case, the court will consider whether such testimony may be used in place of a child witness who was widely considered capable of testifying. The case (White vs. Illinois, 90-6113) will be heard in the fall.

--Let stand lower court rulings giving leeway to the Bonneville Power Administration in selling electricity to utilities in the Northwest and Southern California. The BPA, a federal agency, markets electrical power from the Columbia River. Attorneys for Southern California utilities said BPA discriminates against them by favoring customers in Washington and Oregon. The Southern California utilities say the discrimination costs its customers an extra $115 million a year in higher charges (California Energy Commission vs. BPA, 90-1256).