IV. Enactment of the Prison Litigation Reform Act
In the spring of 1996 Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act, and President Clinton signed the bill into law on April 26, 1996. The PLRA brought sweeping and unprecedented changes in the ability of prisoners to seek relief in court from conditions that threaten their health and safety or otherwise violate their legal rights.[21]
The PLRA governs lawsuits brought in the federal courts of the United States, whether those lawsuits involve federal, state, or local facilities. Many US states have enacted laws that similarly restrict prisoners’ access to state courts; those laws are beyond the scope of this report.[22]
The proponents of the PLRA argued that prisoners were clogging the courts with an avalanche of frivolous lawsuits, thus impairing the quality of justice enjoyed by law-abiding persons. In reality, prisoners were filing lawsuits at about the same rate as non-incarcerated persons,[23] and prisoner lawsuits often involved allegations of physical abuse, inadequate medical care, and other non-frivolous claims. The PLRA’s supporters also expressed concern about court orders regulating prison conditions, although such orders were issued only if a court found that prisoners’ rights had been violated, or if prison officials consented to the order. Nevertheless, the PLRA passed with broad support from both Republicans and Democrats.[24]
For a bill that made major changes in the enforceability of fundamental rights, the PLRA received remarkably little congressional scrutiny. It was passed not as a freestanding bill, but as an amendment to a bill to appropriate funds for the continued operation of the federal government.[25] The legislative record consists largely of anecdotes about allegedly frivolous litigation brought by prisoners, such as a case in which “an inmate sued, claiming cruel and unusual punishment because he received one jar of chunky and one jar of creamy peanut butter after ordering two jars of chunky from the prison canteen.”[26]
While the provision for preliminary screening of prisoner lawsuits is reasonable, other provisions of the PLRA erect significant obstacles to the enforcement of fundamental rights. For example, when a court has issued an order to remedy unlawful conditions in a prison, jail, or juvenile facility, the PLRA provides that officials can render that order unenforceable simply by filing a motion in court.[27] And the law’s severe restrictions on attorney fees mean that even prisoners with meritorious cases have difficulty finding lawyers to assist them.[28]
[21] Under US law, a private citizen cannot compel the criminal prosecution of another person. Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614 , 619 (1973). Therefore, for prisoners who are subjected to unlawful conduct, a civil lawsuit is the only remedy.
[22] See, for example, the Maryland Prisoner Litigation Act, Ann. Code Md. secs. 5-1001–5-1007.
[23] Margo Schlanger, “Inmate Litigation,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 116, April 2003, p. 1692.
[24]For a critique of the arguments of the PLRA’s proponents, see Schlanger, “Inmate Litigation,” Harvard Law Review, p. 1692 (concluding that “the most basic element of the critics' account—that the reason so few inmate plaintiffs were successful was that their cases were simply frivolous (and not just legally frivolous but actually laughable)—is not true”).
[25] Schlanger, “Inmate Litigation,” Harvard Law Review, p. 1559.
[26] Dennis C. Vacco, Frankie Sue del Papa, Pamela Fanning Carter, and Christine O. Gregoire, “Free the Courts from Frivolous Prisoner Suits,” New York Times, March 3, 1995, p. A26 (letter to the editor from Attorneys General of New York, Nevada, Indiana, and Washington). Federal Appeals Court Judge Jon O. Newman researched three of the cases described in this letter, and concluded that the descriptions were “at best highly misleading and, sometimes, simply false.” Jon O. Newman, “Pro Se Prisoner Litigation: Looking for Needles in Haystacks,” Brooklyn Law Review, vol. 62, 1996, p. 520.
[27] 18 U.S.C. sec. 3626(e)(2).
[28] See, for example, Robbins v. Chronister, 435 F.3d 1238 (10th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (attorney who won excessive force case for prisoner received payment of $1.50 as a result of PLRA’s limits on attorney fees); Pearson v. Welborn, 471 F.3d 732 (7th Cir. 2006) (attorney who won prisoner’s claim that staff unlawfully retaliated against him, resulting in confinement in “supermax” prison for more than one year, received payment of $1.50 due to PLRA’s fee limitations). The Pearson case is discussed further in section VI, below.