Comment by Sundeep Kothari
The Supreme Court has wrestled with the relationship between wealth and meaningful access to courts for the greater part of this century. On the one hand, the Constitution requires that there be a constitutional right of meaningful access to courts and that the government not arbitrarily discriminate on the basis of wealth. At the same time, the Constitution neither requires states to provide universally equal treatment for all people in every situation nor to provide every conceivable procedural protection. No practical theory of equal protection or due process could accomplish this, because laws by their very nature seek to differentiate and because money alone cannot guarantee equality or fairness. Thus, a tension has developed between two competing values: the absence of a state obligation to redress financial inequities that exist independent of state action versus the state's obligation to provide due process and equal protection to all who seek access to the judicial process when strong individual liberty interests are at stake. Because of this second obligation, the state must actively redress financial discrimination to make access meaningful.
The Supreme Court confronted this tension most recently in M.L.B. v. S.L.J. In resolving this case, the Court did more than simply decide whether a state must waive fees in a civil appeal. Instead, the Court shed light on the competing values that have dominated the interpretation of equal protection and due process in cases dealing with the right of indigents to judicial access. This Comment posits that a hybrid reasoning that combines due process and equal protection principles has driven the expansion of indigent rights from Powell v. Alabama, through Griffin v. Illinois, through Boddie v. Connecticut, and finally the recent M.L.B. v. S.L.J. decision.
Part I examines the early development of the right to counsel at trial in criminal cases. This part establishes that the interplay of equal protection and due process principles drove: (1) the incorporation of the right to the appointment of counsel in federal and state courts and (2) the requirement that the government address how wealth differentiation affects fairness in the courtroom. Part II analyzes the early development of the right of access to the appellate process. This part shows how the Court molded the hybrid due process/equal protection reasoning that was present in the right to criminal trial counsel cases into a formal constitutional doctrine in Griffin v. Illinois to combat wealth discrimination in appellate processes. Part II shows how this new constitutional doctrine gave the Supreme Court the opportunity to combat wealth differentiation without having to establish a constitutional right to an appeal. Part III proves how the Court attempted in the modern era to prevent hybrid due process/equal protection reasoning from expanding into new areas of indigent access law. However, an examination of cases where rights were extended, such as Ake v. Oklahoma, Boddie v. Connecticut, and Little v. Streater, proves that while the Supreme Court claimed that it was utilizing a strict due process rationale, the Court in fact employed a Griffin-style hybrid due process/equal protection reasoning to allow indigents meaningful access to judicial processes. Part IV analyzes the various opinions proffered in M.L.B. v. S.L.J., in which the Supreme Court for the first time extended Griffin's hybrid equal protection/due process analysis into the civil appeal context and mandated a constitutional right to a fee waiver in a civil appeal. Part V concludes that the majority opinion is generally correct in M.L.B. because it properly balanced the factors in deciding whether to extend the right of meaningful access to civil appeals. This final part also analyzes M.L.B.'s place within the greater context of indigent access jurisprudence.
About the Author
Sundeep Kothari. B.A. 1993, Emory University; J.D. 1998, Tulane University School of Law.
Citation
72 Tul. L. Rev. 2159 (1998)