Background - Lynch v. Gilmore

    OCTOBER 2, 1971 

BACKGROUND 

LYNCH v. GILMORE 

In a suit which could significantly improve the quality of 

legal assistance to poor convicts in California state penal 

institutions, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 

(LDF), and its subordinate organization, the National Office 

for the Rights of the Indigent (NORI), have submitted a friend 

of the court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of 

California prisoners. 

The case, known as Lynch v. Gilmore, came up to the high 

court on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Northern 

District of California. There, a three-judge panel ruled that 

California penal laws and regulations governing prisoners' rights 

to legal assistance were so inadequate as to insure that poor 

convicted inmates, whose time for a first appeal had lapsed, and 

who believed that their convictions were tainted by errors of 

law, were deprived of effective access to the courts. 

California officials chose to appeal, rather than submit to 

the district court decision, which called for the creation of a 

plan to improve the legal resources available to this class of 

prisoners. 

If the state loses again in the Supreme Court, the ruling 

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NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. | 10 Columbus Circle | New York, N.Y. 10019 | (212) 586-8397 

William T. Coleman, Jr. - President Jack Greenberg - Director-Counsel 



BACKGROUND ~- LYNCH v. GILMORE PAGE TWO 

could have substantial direct and indirect impact on many in- 

adequate prison systems around the country. 

According to LDF's amicus brief, California has no law 

which requires the state to inform convicted felons of their 

constitutional right to appeal, nor to inform poor convicted 

felons of their right to assigned counsel for their first appeal. 

Ignorance of these rights, LDF/NORI contend, has led to a 

relatively small number of appeals (from 1964 through 1968 only 

5% of California's convicted felons appealed their cases). 

Once the time for appeal has lapsed, claims of error in 

criminal convictions or sentences must be presented in post- 

conviction collateral proceedings (e.g. habeas corpus, coram 

nobis), for which the state does not provide counsel. Thus those 

prisoners unable to afford private counsel must depend on what- 

ever legal assistanee the state might provide in preparing these 

crucial pleadings. In California, law libraries are maintained 

in each of the state's 12 prisons. 

Ironically, this case began in reaction to a new penal 

regulation purporting to "standardize" these libraries. The 

California Department of Corrections, to implement its regulation, 

published a list of Law books which were to be kept in the prisons. 

The regulation also provided for the confiscation of those law 

books and materials not on the prescribed list. The result, 

according to LDF/NORI, amounted to a "veritable book burning " 

And the lower court found the "approved" book list grossly in- 

adequate, even for the limited purpose of preparing and presenting 

post-conviction pleadings, thus barring indigent prisoners of 

effective access to the courts and violating their rights to due 

process. 

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BACKGROUND - LYNCH v. GILMORE PAGE THREE 

Also under contention is whether the California penal 

practices violated the equal protection clause as well. LDF/NORI 

claim that California imprisons only a fraction of its convicted 

felons. Those who receive suspended sentences or are released on 

parole are free to hold jobs and thus afford an attorney, or to 

use the vast resources of public law libraries to fight con- 

victions, while the state provides no parallel resource for those 

unfortunate enough to be imprisoned for similar crimes. 

To demonstrate some of the inequities and costly consequences 

of the present system, LDF/NORI took statistics from the 1970 

Annual Report to the Governor and the Legislature (of California). 

According to this report, in fiscal year 1968-1969, some 6,200 

post-conviction applications were filed by prisoners in various 

state courts. Of these, about 5,300 were denied without hearing 

or written opinion. LDF/NORI believe that many of these denials 

resulted from errors in venue and a general lack of knowledge 

about important facts of law on the part of prisoners. 

Were prisoners provided with proper legal assistance, the 

brief suggests, frivolous or unacceptable arguments might have 

been screened out before they bogged down California's overcrowded 

courts, and, more importantly, meritorious claims, if prepared 

with some legal expertise or guidance, would not run the risk of 

being overlooked in a deluge of frivolous claims. 

California officials continue to assert, as they did in lower 

court, that state-supported legal assistance to indigents is not 

a right, but a privilege; that any plan to improve the quality of 

legal resources would necessitate the spending of additional 

state monies and amount to a "raid on the state treasury" in 

violation of the Eleventh Amendment. Both arguments were found 

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BACKGROUND - LYNCH v. GILMORE PAGE FOUR 

to be without basis in the lower court. 

The interest of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 

Fund and the National Office for the Rights of the Indigent in 

this case stem from their initiation of more than 63 class 

action and individual suits against prisons and jails on behalf 

of poor inmates. Their experience, while highly successful, has 

also been frustrating. Atrocious conditions -- both physical 

and administratively imposed -- are commonplace in all but a 

handful of American prisons and jails. Under present circumstances. 

the legal job is endless. 

Aside from the substantial benefits which would accrue to 

poor California convicts should the Supreme Court uphold their 

right to effective access to the courts as being paramount, 

the tool of legal recourse -- guaranteed in theory though not in 

fact to the majority of American prisoners -- could provide the 

strongest impetus for prison reform from within. 

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