Raymond Washington v. Clayton Penwell

This is a case of the Emperor’s new clothes.

The State of Oregon, chafing under an increasingly vexatious decree consented to by its prison officials, realized it was playing an unwarranted role in a legal fiction. It asks us to agree that what enmeshes it is a fallacy and thereby to dispel the illusion.

The saga began when indigent Oregon prisoners sued state officials, alleging that inadequate legal facilities denied their constitutional right of access to the courts. In 1978, District Judge Belloni entered a consent decree requiring accessible prison law libraries and trained prisoner paralegals. A second consent decree clarified these requirements.

Another provision, the matter now at issue, provided that the court would continue jurisdiction to determine whether the state provided plaintiffs’ counsel, Prisoners’ Legal Services of Oregon (PLSO), sufficient funds to insure adequate general legal services to inmates.

In 1979, Judge Belloni granted the prisoners a temporary restraining order, requiring defendants to fund PLSO to the extent “necessary to meet the Constitutional mini mum of legal services needed for ‘meaningful access to the courts.’ ” He ordered the parties to…