Casey v. Lewis

834 F. Supp. 1553, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21694, 1992 WL 524257
CourtDistrict Court, D. Arizona
DecidedNovember 13, 1992
DocketCIV 90-0054 PHX CAM, CIV 91-1808 PHX CAM
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 834 F. Supp. 1553 (Casey v. Lewis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Casey v. Lewis, 834 F. Supp. 1553, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21694, 1992 WL 524257 (D. Ariz. 1992).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW ACCESS TO THE COURTS

MUECKE, District Judge.

Having considered the evidence presented by the parties in this matter regarding the access to the courts issues, the Court concludes as follows:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Access to the Courts

A. Physical Access without access to legal materials

In a number of facilities, prisoners allowed physical access to the law library are not allowed to browse the shelves. In some facilities, general population prisoners are denied access to the shelves although they are allowed physical access to the law library. Therefore, they must request legal materials from untrained prisoner law clerks or security officers. 1

Inmates may browse the shelves in the law library at the Rynning unit law library at Florence; 2 the Florence women’s unit; 3 *1556 Tucson; 4 the Mohave unit and the Gila unit at Douglas. 5 None of the inmates have access to the stacks at any of the law libraries at Perryville 6 or the Kaibab unit at Win-slow. 7

Two lockdown facilities in Florence, SMU and CB-6, have developed “cages” that allow prisoners to sit in the law library area but prevent them from browsing the shelves. 8 Prisoners in the “cages” at CB6 and SMU must request legal materials from an untrained law clerk. 9

Defendants argue that vandalism problems justify denial of access to the stacks. Defendants establish that vandalism occurred to legal materials in the Perryville complex. 10 However, it is not clear that this vandalism occurred because of access to the shelves. In certain facilities where prisoners have been allowed to browse the shelves, legal materials have not been stolen or damaged. 11 Further, there is no evidence that allowing prisoners to browse the law library shelves is the cause of missing or damaged legal materials. 12 Rather, the evidence suggests that inadequate staffing may be the cause of missing or damaged legal materials. 13

B. Denial of Physical Access to the Law Libraries

Lockdown prisoners are routinely denied .physical access to the law library. Prisoners in lockdown status in most facilities have no physical access to the law library. 14 In order for lockdown prisoners who are denied physical access to the law library to obtain legal materials or a legal assistant, they must send a written request (“kite”) to the law library. The legal materials, if available, are sent to the prisoner in his/her lockdown cell. 15 Legal materials are brought to the prisoner in lockdown by ADOC staff, a prisoner legal assistant, or a prisoner law clerk. 16

Staffing, logistics, and the reluctance to mix general population prisoners with lock-down prisoners are the reasons lockdown prisoners are generally denied physical access to the law library. 17 However, despite these same concerns, prisoners in lockdown in the Rynning unit and the Women’s Division in Florence are allowed physical access to the law library and are allowed to browse the shelves. 18

Prisoners in lockdown experience severe interference with their access to the courts. Unless a lockdown prisoner has a pending ADOC charge or outside (“street”) case pending, the prisoner is denied access to a legal assistant. 19 Prisoners who are in lock- *1557 down status for less than fifteen days may be denied any access to the law library. 20 For example, prisoners who are in lockdown in Perryville are by policy not eligible to request legal materials unless they have been in lockdown for more than fourteen days. 21 In many instances, prisoners in lockdown are denied law books unless they can provide an exact citation. 22

Prisoners in lockdown routinely experience long delays in receiving legal materials or legal assistance. At Perryville, it can take several days, even weeks, for a request for legal material to get to the law library and be filled. 23 At Tucson, lockdown prisoners may wait as long as three to seven days to receive legal materials from the law library. 24 At Tucson, lockdown prisoners experience delays in receiving legal assistance from legal assistants. 25 Legal assistants are only sent to the lockdown unit on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights. 26 At Winslow, it can take a week for a request for legal assistance to reach a legal assistant. 27 Legal assistants at Winslow are allowed to visit lockdown prisoners only four days a week. 28 At Douglas, lockdown prisoners are denied access to legal materials and legal assistants on Fridays and Saturdays. 29

Prisoners in lockdown are restricted in the numbers of books they can receive and the length of time they can keep the material. It has been the practice at Perryville to allow prisoners to receive only one book at a time, to be kept for only twenty-four hours. 30 Lockdown prisoners at Tucson are allowed to keep legal materials for only twenty-four hours. Because of this restriction, they tend to request only one or two books at a time. 31 Even lockdown prisoners who are intelligent, *1558 literate and legally trained are unable to do legal research under paging system that allows only one or two books at a time every couple of days. In addition, the legal assistants assigned to lockdown prisoners are not sufficiently skilled to assist them. 32

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Bluebook (online)
834 F. Supp. 1553, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21694, 1992 WL 524257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/casey-v-lewis-azd-1992.