Petitioner, an indigent, was charged in the New York courts with
robbery, larceny, and assault. His request for a free copy of a
preliminary hearing transcript was denied. A New York statute
provides for the furnishing of such a transcript for a fee.
Petitioner was convicted, his conviction was affirmed, the New York
Court of Appeals denied review, and this Court denied certiorari.
At each proceeding, petitioner raised the constitutional issue
involving denial of the transcript. His subsequent petition for
habeas corpus was denied by the District Court. Thereafter, in
People v. Montgomery, 18 N.Y.2d 993, 224 N.E.2d 730
(1966), the New York Court of Appeals held that the statutory
requirement of payment for a transcript, as applied to an indigent,
constituted a denial of equal protection. The Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit held that, in these circumstances, petitioner
should return to the state courts for relief under the
Montgomery doctrine.
Held:
1. The New York statute results in a difference in access to
instruments needed to vindicate legal rights; this difference,
based upon a defendant's financial situation, is contrary to the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Petitioner had already exhausted his state remedies; no
substantial state interest would be served by requiring him to
resubmit to the state courts an issue the resolution of which is
predetermined by established federal principles.
Certiorari granted; 373 F.2d 49, vacated and remanded.
PER CURIAM.
Petitioner is an indigent. He was charged with robbery, larceny,
and assault in New York. When his case
Page 389 U. S. 41
was called for trial, petitioner asked that the court furnish
him, at state expense, with the minutes of a prior preliminary
hearing, at which the major state witnesses had testified. A New
York statute provided that a transcript of the hearing would be
furnished "on payment of . . . fees at the rate of five cents for
every hundred words." N.Y.Code Crim.Proc. § 206. The trial court
denied the request for a free transcript.
Petitioner was convicted of the crimes charged and sentenced to
a term of 120 years in prison. His conviction was affirmed by the
Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court. The New York
Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. We denied a petition for
certiorari. The issue under the Federal Constitution of the denial
of the preliminary hearing transcript was raised by petitioner at
each stage of these proceedings.
Petitioner next applied for habeas corpus in the Northern
District of New York. His petition was denied, the court believing
that petitioner had no federal constitutional right to a free
transcript of his preliminary hearing. Thereafter, the New York
Court of Appeals decided
People v. Montgomery, 18 N.Y.2d
993, 224 N.E.2d 730 (1966). That case holds that the statutory
requirement of payment for a preliminary hearing transcript, as
applied to an indigent, is a denial of equal protection and
unconstitutional, under both the Federal and State
Constitutions.
On petitioner's appeal from the District Court, the Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that petitioner should
apply to the state courts for relief under the doctrine of
Montgomery. The court acknowledged that petitioner had
already exhausted his state remedies. But it thought the
"constitutional necessity for federal court intervention" was "open
to doubt," and that "the question ought to be decided in favor of
permitting a state court determination in the first instance."
Page 389 U. S. 42
Accordingly, it dismissed the petition for habeas corpus without
prejudice to renewal of the questions presented by petitioner after
further proceedings in the courts of New York.
Petitioner sought certiorari. We grant the writ, and we vacate
the judgment below.
Our decisions for more than a decade now have made clear that
differences in access to the instruments needed to vindicate legal
rights, when based upon the financial situation of the defendant,
are repugnant to the Constitution.
See, e.g., Draper v.
Washington, 372 U. S. 487
(1963);
Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S.
12 (1956). Only last Term, in
Long v. District Court
of Iowa, 385 U. S. 192
(1966), we reiterated the statement first made in
Smith v.
Bennett, 365 U. S. 708,
365 U. S. 709
(1961), that
"to interpose any financial consideration between an indigent
prisoner of the State and his exercise of a state right to sue for
his liberty is to deny that prisoner the equal protection of the
laws."
We have no doubt that the New York statute struck down by the
New York Court of Appeals in
Montgomery, as applied to
deny a free transcript to an indigent, could not meet the test of
our prior decisions.
Nor do we believe there can be any doubt that petitioner
adequately made known his desire to obtain the minutes of his
preliminary hearing. We agree with Judge Medina, dissenting in the
Court of Appeals, that the demand was "clear and unequivocal."
In
Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443
(1953), we considered the statutory requirement, under 28 U.S.C. §
2254, that a petitioner exhaust his state remedies before applying
for federal habeas corpus relief. We concluded that Congress had
not intended "to require repetitious applications to state courts."
344 U.S. at
344 U. S. 449,
n. 3. We declined to rule that the mere possibility of a successful
application to the state courts was sufficient to bar federal
Page 389 U. S. 43
relief. Such a rule would severely limit the scope of the
federal habeas corpus statute.
The observations made in the
Brown case apply here.
Petitioner has already thoroughly exhausted his state remedies, as
the Court of Appeals recognized. Still more state litigation would
be both unnecessarily time-consuming and otherwise burdensome. This
is not a case in which there is any substantial state interest in
ruling once again on petitioner's case. We can conceive of no
reason why the State would wish to burden its judicial calendar
with a narrow issue the resolution of which is predetermined by
established federal principles.
The motion for leave to proceed
in forma pauperis and
the writ of certiorari are granted, the judgment is vacated, and
the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
As the Court states, petitioner was told that, if he wished a
transcript of his preliminary hearing he would have to pay for it.
The Court fails to add, however, that petitioner and his counsel
were both present at the preliminary hearing, that they were
furnished a free transcript of the grand jury testimony of the
state witness in question but made no use of this transcript at
trial, and that at no time has petitioner suggested any use to
which the preliminary hearing transcript could have been put,
although he is in a position to know what it contains.
The decisions cited in the majority opinion fall far short of
declaring that any document related to the criminal process, no
matter how demonstrably trivial its significance, must be supplied
free to indigents simply because the State is willing to make it
available to others able to pay for it. Rather than formulate such
an undiscriminating rule, a rule that predictably may lead to a
narrowing of the availability of documents that a State
Page 389 U. S. 44
is not constitutionally required to furnish to any criminal
defendant, I would at least undertake to examine the importance of
the particular document in question.
This examination is not necessary in the present case, however,
for, as the Court's opinion recognizes, there exists an adequate
basis under state law for affording petitioner the relief that he
seeks here. Believing, as did the Court of Appeals, that federal
courts should not unnecessarily interfere with the administration
of justice in state courts, particularly when this involves
reaching federal constitutional questions unnecessarily,
see
Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167, I
would affirm the decision below.
In addition, in the circumstances depicted by this record, I
consider the Court's disposition of this case improvident even
under the postulates of its opinion. I understand the Court to
require the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, and hence the
setting aside of the state conviction, without any further
investigation of whether the constitutional error now found to have
been committed by the state courts actually prejudiced this
defendant. Since there appears every likelihood that further
examination would reveal that the denial of a preliminary hearing
transcript to this petitioner was "harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt,"
Chapman v. California, 386 U. S.
18, at
386 U. S. 24,
the case should have been sent back to the Court of Appeals with
instruction to remand to the District Court for a hearing to
determine the possibility of prejudice.
Cf. Roberts v. United
States, ante, p.
386 U. S. 18. Due
respect for state criminal processes requires at least this
much.