Appellant was convicted of a criminal offense in New Jersey and
sentenced to prison. At his request, the county furnished him with
a trial transcript in connection with his
in forma
pauperis appeal. The appeal proved unsuccessful. His prison
pay was withheld to reimburse the county for the cost of the
transcript under a statute providing for reimbursement from the
institutional earnings of an unsuccessful criminal appellant. The
statute requires no such repayment from an unsuccessful appellant
given a suspended sentence, placed on probation, or sentenced only
to pay a fine. A three-judge Federal District Court rejected
appellant's claim that the statute is unconstitutional.
Held: A state statute requiring an unsuccessful
appellant to repay the cost of a transcript used in preparing his
appeal which applies only to one incarcerated, but not to others,
constitutes invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp.
384 U. S.
308-311.
238 F. Supp. 960, reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellant, Joseph A. Rinaldi, was convicted of a criminal
offense in a trial court of Essex County, New Jersey, and sentenced
to prison for a term of five to 10
Page 384 U. S. 306
years. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division,
allowed him leave to appeal
in forma pauperis and granted
his petition for a transcript of the trial court proceedings,
finding that the transcript was needed for the appeal and that
Rinaldi was unable to pay for it. [
Footnote 1] Rinaldi's appeal was unsuccessful, and he is
now an inmate in the New Jersey State Prison.
As compensation for his work in prison, Rinaldi earns 20 cents a
day, five days a week. Since late 1963, however, every day's pay
has been withheld from him by prison officials and sent to the
Treasurer of Essex County, in order to reimburse the county for the
$215 cost of the transcript it provided for his appeal. This has
been done in accordance with a statute enacted by New Jersey in
1956, shortly after this Court's decision in
Griffin v.
Illinois, 351 U. S. 12.
Rinaldi brought this suit to enjoin enforcement of the statute on
the ground that it is unconstitutional. [
Footnote 2]
Page 384 U. S. 307
A three-judge Federal District Court denied relief, 238 F. Supp.
960, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 382 U.S. 1007.
The statute in question is N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:152-18 (1964
Cum.Supp.), and it provides as follows:
"The county treasurer shall file a notice of [the payment by the
county] and the amount thereof with the institution in which said
person, upon whose application the transcript of the record was
prepared, is confined, and, to the extent of the expense incurred,
the county treasurer shall be reimbursed from any institutional
earnings of such person, in the event that the application for
relief is denied by . . . an appellate court."
Rinaldi attacked the constitutionality of this statute on the
basis of our decisions defining the duty of a State, under the
Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause, not to limit
the opportunity of an appeal in a criminal case because of the
appellant's poverty.
Griffin v. Illinois, supra; Burns v.
Ohio, 360 U. S. 252;
Draper v. Washington, 372 U. S. 487;
cf. Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708;
Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477. A
logical extension of these decisions, the appellant contends, would
prohibit a State from discouraging an indigent's freedom to appeal
by saddling him with the obligation of paying for the cost of a
transcript in the event his appeal is unsuccessful. We do not reach
this contention, however,
Page 384 U. S. 308
because we find the statute constitutionally deficient upon a
different ground.
The New Jersey law does not impose this financial burden upon
all who have been convicted in its courts and whose appeals have
been unsuccessful. It requires no repayment at all from a man who
has received a suspended sentence or been placed on probation,
regardless of how high his subsequent earnings may be. It requires
no repayment at all from an unsuccessful appellant who has been
sentenced only to pay a fine. [
Footnote 3] Instead, the law fastens the duty of repayment
only upon a single class of unsuccessful appellants -- those who
are confined in institutions. [
Footnote 4] We find that the discriminatory classification
imposed by this law violates the requirements of the Equal
Protection Clause.
The Equal Protection Clause requires more of a state law than
nondiscriminatory application within the class it establishes.
McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184,
379 U. S.
189-190. It also imposes a requirement of some
rationality
Page 384 U. S. 309
in the nature of the class singled out. To be sure, the
constitutional demand is not a demand that a statute necessarily
apply equally to all persons. "The Constitution does not require
things which are different, in fact, . . . to be treated in law as
though they were the same."
Tigner v. Texas, 310 U.
S. 141,
310 U. S. 147.
Hence, legislation may impose special burdens upon defined classes
in order to achieve permissible ends. But the Equal Protection
Clause does require that, in defining a class subject to
legislation, the distinctions that are drawn have "some relevance
to the purpose for which the classification is made."
Baxstrom
v. Herold, 383 U. S. 107,
383 U. S. 111;
Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89,
380 U. S. 93;
Louisville Gas Co. v. Coleman, 277 U. S.
32,
277 U. S. 37;
Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.
S. 412,
253 U. S.
415.
We have been referred to no record of legislative history that
might disclose with precision what this law was designed to
achieve, but the statute itself bears the heading "Reimbursement."
We may assume that a legislature could validly provide for
replenishing a county treasury from the pockets of those who have
directly benefited from county expenditures. To fasten a financial
burden only upon those unsuccessful appellants who are confined in
state institutions, however, is to make an invidious
discrimination. Those appellants who have been sentenced only to
pay fines have been accorded the same benefit by the county -- a
transcript used in an unsuccessful appeal -- and all that
distinguishes them from their institutionalized counterparts is the
nature of the penalty attached to the offense committed. There is
no defensible interest served by focusing on that distinction as a
classifying feature in a reimbursement statute, since it bears no
relationship whatever to the purpose of the repayment provision.
Likewise, an appellant subject only to a suspended sentence or to
probation is likely to differ from an inmate only in the extent of
his criminal record. That, too, is a trait unrelated to the fiscal
objective
Page 384 U. S. 310
of the statute. Finally, the classification established by the
statute cannot be justified on the ground of administrative
convenience. Any supposed administrative inconvenience would be
minimal, since repayment could easily be made a condition of
probation or parole, [
Footnote
5] and those punished only by fines could be reached through
the ordinary processes of garnishment in the event of default.
[
Footnote 6]
Apart from its fiscal objective, the only other purpose of this
law advanced by the appellees is the deterrence of frivolous
appeals. Assuming a law enacted to perform that function to be
otherwise valid, the present statutory classification is no less
vulnerable under the Equal Protection Clause when viewed in
relation to that function. By imposing a financial obligation only
upon inmates of institutions, the statute inevitably burdens many
whose appeals, though unsuccessful, were not frivolous, and leaves
untouched many whose appeals may have been frivolous indeed.
This Court has never held that the States are required to
establish avenues of appellate review, but it is now fundamental
that, once established, these avenues must be kept free of
unreasoned distinctions that can only impede open and equal access
to the courts.
Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S.
12;
Douglas v.
California, 372 U.S.
Page 384 U. S. 311
353;
Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477;
Draper v. Washington, 372 U. S. 487. We
may assume that a State can validly provide for recoupment of the
cost of appeals from those who later become financially able to
pay. But any such provision must, under the Equal Protection
Clause, be applied with an even hand.
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the
District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[
Footnote 1]
The following New Jersey statute authorizes initial imposition
of the expense of the transcript upon the county:
"Any person convicted of any crime may make application under
oath to any judge of the County Court or Law Division of the
Superior Court of the county where the venue was laid showing that
a copy of the transcript of the record, testimony and proceedings
at the trial is necessary for the filing of any application with
the trial court, and that he is unable, by reason of poverty, to
defray the expense of procuring the same, and any such judge may,
being satisfied of the facts stated and of the sufficiency thereof,
certify the expense thereof to the county treasurer, who shall
thereupon pay such expense, the amount thereof having been approved
by the judge to whom such application was made. Where such person
appeals to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court and copies
of the transcript of the proceedings in the trial court are needed
therefor, he may make a similar application to such court which,
being satisfied of the facts stated and the sufficiency thereof,
may certify the expense and amount thereof to the county treasurer
who shall thereupon pay such expense."
N.J.Stat.Ann. 2A:152-17 (1964 Cum.Supp.).
[
Footnote 2]
The suit was brought pursuant to R.S. § 1979, 42 U.S.C. §
1983:
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects,
or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or
other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of
any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution
and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law,
suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
[
Footnote 3]
It is true that some indigents who are fined may not be able to
pay the fine. New Jersey provides that they may be placed at labor
in an institution until the fine is paid. N.J.Stat.Ann. §
2A:166-14; N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:166-16. Those who are convicted of
misdemeanors, however, may be permitted to go at large until the
fine is paid. N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:166-15. Moreover, felony
defendants indigent for transcript purposes may be able to obtain
the money to pay a fine, and thus avoid confinement in an
institution and the reimbursement obligation that such confinement
entails.
[
Footnote 4]
Moreover, in view of another New Jersey statute, it appears that
wages may not be withheld from every inmate who would otherwise be
indebted to a county. N.J.Stat.Ann. § 30:4-92 provides in relevant
part: "Compensation for inmates of correctional institutions may be
in the form of cash or remission of time from sentence or both."
Hence, some inmates may not receive cash in exchange for their
labor. Other inmates, of course, may not be assigned to work. The
reimbursement statute appears to allow for these variations insofar
as it provides that ". . . the county treasurer shall be reimbursed
from
any institutional earnings of such person." (Emphasis
supplied.)
[
Footnote 5]
See N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:168-2; N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:167-8.
See Kamisar & Choper, The Right to Counsel in
Minnesota: Some Field Findings and Legal Policy Observations, 48
Minn.L.Rev. 1, 23-24:
"The practice of certain judges in some of [the counties
studied] and of all judges in others is to require, as a condition
of probation, that the convicted indigent repay the county's
expenditure for his lawyer. The probation officer usually informs
the judge of the amount the defendant should be expected to repay
each week. The survey indicates that this condition of probation is
rarely, if ever, violated."
[
Footnote 6]
See N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:17-50.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
New Jersey recoups the cost of trial transcripts furnished to
indigents out of prison allowances made to incarcerated prisoners,
but does not seek reimbursement from parolees or convicted
defendants not imprisoned. The Court holds this differentiation to
violate the Equal Protection Clause. I am unable to agree. Under
conventional equal protection standards which disapprove only
irrational and arbitrary classifications, the statute is plainly
valid.
See McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.
S. 184,
379 U. S.
190-191;
McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.
S. 420,
366 U. S. 426;
Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S.
61,
220 U. S. 78-79.
Surely the State might reasonably choose to reimburse itself for
such transcript costs out of prison allowances, but deem it not
worth the added time and trouble, or even advisable, to attempt to
extract such charges from a convict not in prison who must support
himself on his own resources. Adhering to the traditional test of
rationality, I would affirm the decision of the District Court.
*
* I find no substance to appellant's main argument, which the
Court laws aside, that to permit any such recoupment from an
indigent is an unconstitutional deterrent to appeal. Nor do I think
there is any force to the argument in n. 4 (
ante, p.
384 U. S.
308), not even suggested by appellant, which, at best,
goes to the validity of the statutes governing compensation, and
not to the reimbursement statute being reviewed.