518 U.S. 343116 S.Ct. 2174135 L.Ed.2d 606
LEWIS, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al.v.CASEY et al.Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
No. 94-1511.
Argued November 29, 1995
Decided June 24, 1996

Syllabus
Respondents, who are inmates of various prisons operated by the Arizona  Department of Corrections (ADOC), brought a class action against  petitioners, ADOC officials, alleging that petitioners were furnishing  them with inadequate legal research facilities and thereby depriving  them of their right of access to the courts, in violation of Bounds v.  Smith, 430 U. S. 817.   The District Court found petitioners to be in  violation of Bounds and issued an injunction mandating detailed,  systemwide changes in ADOC's prison law libraries and in its legal  assistance programs. The Ninth Circuit affirmed both the finding of a  Bounds violation and the injunction's major terms.
Held:  The success of respondents' systemic challenge was dependent on  their ability to show widespread actual injury, and the District Court's  failure to identify anything more than isolated instances of actual  injury renders its finding of a systemic Bounds violation invalid.  Pp.  3-20.
(a) Bounds did not create an abstract, free-standing right to a law  library or legal assistance; rather, the right that Bounds acknowledged  was the right of access to the courts.  E.g., 430 U. S., at 817, 821,  828.  Thus, to establish a Bounds  violation, the ``actual injury'' that  an inmate must demonstrate is that the alleged shortcomings in the  prison library or legal  assistance program have hindered, or are  presently hindering, his efforts to pursue a nonfrivolous legal claim.  This requirement derives ultimately from the doctrine of standing.  Although Bounds made no mention of an actual injury requirement,  it can  hardly be thought to have eliminated that constitutional  prerequisite.  Pp. 4-9.
(b) Statements in Bounds suggesting that prison authorities must also  enable the prisoner to discover grievances, and to litigate effectively  once in court, id., at 825-826, and n. 14, have no antecedent in this  Court's pre-Bounds cases, and are now disclaimed.  Moreover, Bounds does  not guarantee inmates the wherewithal to file any and every type of  legal claim, but requires only that they be provided with the tools to  attack their sentences, directly or collaterally, and to challenge the conditions of their confinement.  Pp. 9-11.
It found that ADOC's failures with respect to illiterate prisoners had  resulted in the dismissal with prejudice of inmate Bartholic's lawsuit  and the inability of inmate Harris to file a legal action. Pp. 11-12.
(d) These findings as to injury do not support the systemwide injunction  ordered by the District Court.  The remedy must be limited to the  inadequacy that produced the injury-in-fact that the plaintiff has  established; that this is a class action changes nothing, for even named  plaintiffs in a class action must show that they personally have been  injured, see, e.g., Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Tights Organization,  426 U. S. 26, 40, n. 20.  Only one named plaintiff, Bartholic, was found  to have suffered actual injury-as a result of ADOC's failure to provide the special services he would have needed, in light of his particular  disability (illiteracy), to avoid dismissal of his case.  Eliminated  from the proper scope of the injunction, therefore, are provisions  directed at special services or facilities required by  non-English-speakers, by prisoners in lockdown, and by the inmate  population at large.  Furthermore, the inadequacy that caused actual  injury to illiterate inmates Bartholic and Harris was not sufficiently  widespread to justify systemwide relief.  There is no finding, and no  evidence discernible from the record, that in ADOC prisons other than those occupied by Bartholic and Harris illiterate inmates cannot obtain  the minimal help necessary to file legal claims.  Pp. 12-16.
(e) There are further reasons why the order here cannot stand.  In  concluding that ADOC's restrictions on lockdown inmates were  unjustified, the District Court failed to accord the judgment of prison  authorities the substantial deference required by cases such as Turner  v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 89.  The court also failed to leave with prison  officials the primary responsibility for devising a remedy.  Compare  Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 492.  The result of this improper procedure was an inordinately intrusive order.  Pp. 17-20.  43 F. 3d  1261, reversed and remanded.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C.  J., and O'Connor, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in Parts I and  III of which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined.  Thomas, J.,  filed a concurring opinion.  Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in  part, dissenting in part, and concurring in the judgment, in which  Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined.  Stevens, J., filed a dissenting  opinion.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in  the preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are  requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the  United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other  formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the  preliminary print goes to press.
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.


1
In Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817 (1977), we held that "the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison  authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of  meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate law  libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law."  Id.,  at 828.  Petitioners, who are officials of the Arizona Department of  Corrections (ADOC), contend that the United States District Court for  the District of Arizona erred in finding them in violation of Bounds,  and that the court's remedial order exceeded lawful authority.

I.

2
Respondents are 22 inmates of various prisons operated by ADOC.  In January 1990, they filed this class action "on behalf of all adult  prisoners who are or will be incarcerated by the State of Arizona  Department of Corrections," App. 22, alleging that petitioners were  "depriving [respondents] of their rights of access to the courts and  counsel protected by the First, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments," id.,  at 34.  Following a 3-month bench trial, the District Court ruled in  favor of respondents, finding that "[p]risoners have a constitutional  right of access to the courts that is adequate, effective and  meaningful," 834 F. Supp. 1553, 1566 (Ariz. 1992), citing Bounds, supra,  at 822, and that "[ADOC's] system fails to comply with constitutional standards," 834 F. Supp., at 1569.  The court identified a variety of  shortcomings of the ADOC system, in matters ranging from the training of  library staff, to the updating of legal materials, to the availability  of photocopying services.  In addition to these general findings, the  court found that two groups of inmates were particularly affected by the system's inadequacies: "[l]ockdown prisoners" (inmates segregated from  the general prison population for disciplinary or security reasons), who  "are routinely denied physical access  to the law library" and  "experience severe interference with their access to the courts," id.,  at 1556; and illiterate or non-English-speaking inmates, who do not  receive adequate legal  assistance, id., at 1558.


3
Having thus found liability, the court appointed a special master "to investigate and report about" the appropriate relief-that is   (in the court's view), "how best to accomplish the goal of  constitutionally adequate inmate access to the courts."  App. to Pet.  for Cert. 87a. Following eight months of investigation,  and some degree  of consultation with both parties, the special master lodged with the  court a proposed permanent injunction, which the court proceeded to  adopt, substantially unchanged.  The 25-page injunctive order, see id., at 61a-85a, mandated sweeping changes designed to ensure that ADOC would  "provide meaningful access to the Courts for all present and future  prisoners," id., at 61a. It specified in minute detail the times  that  libraries were to be kept open, the number of hours of library use to  which each inmate was entitled (10 per week), the minimal educational  requirements for prison librarians (a library science degree, law degree  or paralegal degree), the content of a videotaped legal-research course  for inmates (to be prepared by persons appointed by the special master  but funded by ADOC) and similar matters.  Id., at 61a, 67a, 71a.  The injunction addressed the court's concern for lockdown prisoners by ordering that "ADOC prisoners in all housing areas and custody levels  shall be provided regular and comparable visits to the law library,"  except that such visits "may be postponed on an individual basis because  of the prisoner's documented inability to use the law library without  creating a threat to safety or security, or a physical condition if  determined by medical personnel to prevent library use."  Id., at 61a.  With respect to illiterate and non-English-speaking inmates, the  injunction declared that they were entitled to "direct assistance" from lawyers, paralegals or "a sufficient number of  at least minimally trained prisoner Legal Assistants"; it enjoined ADOC that "[p]articular  steps must be taken to locate and train bilingual prisoners to be Legal  Assistants."  Id., at  69a-70a.


4
Petitioners sought review in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth  Circuit, which refused to grant a stay prior to argument. We then  stayed the injunction pending filing and disposition of a petition for a  writ of certiorari.  511 U. S. ___ (1994). Several months later, the  Ninth Circuit affirmed both the finding of a Bounds violation and, with  minor exceptions not important here, the terms of the injunction.  43 F.  3d 1261 (1994).  We granted certiorari, 514 U. S. ___ (1995).

II.

5
Although petitioners present only one question for review, namely whether the District Court's order "exceeds the constitutional  requirements set forth in Bounds," Brief for Petitioners (i), they raise  several distinct challenges, including renewed attacks on the court's  findings of Bounds violations with respect to illiterate,  non-English-speaking and lockdown prisoners, and on the breadth of the  injunction. But their most fundamental contention is that the District  Court's findings of injury were inadequate to justify the finding of systemwide injury and hence the granting of system-wide relief. This  argument has two related components.  First, petitioners claim that in  order to establish a violation of Bounds, an inmate must show that the  alleged inadequacies of a prison's library facilities or legal  assistance program caused him "actual injury"-that is, "actual prejudice  with respect to contemplated or existing litigation, such as the  inability to meet a filing deadline or to present a claim."  Brief for  Petitioners 30.1 Second, they claim that the District Court did not  find enough instances of actual injury to warrant systemwide relief.  We agree that the success of respondents' systemic challenge was dependent  on their ability to show widespread actual injury, and that the court's  failure to identify anything more than isolated instances of actual  injury renders its finding of a systemic Bounds violation invalid.

A.

6
The requirement that an inmate alleging a violation of Bounds must show actual injury derives ultimately from the doctrine of standing, a constitutional principle that prevents courts of law from  undertaking tasks assigned to the political branches.  See Allen v.  Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 750-752 (1984); Valley Forge Christian College v.  Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S.  464, 471-476 (1982).  It is the role of courts to provide relief to  claimants, in individual or class actions, who have suffered, or  will  imminently suffer, actual harm; it is not the role of courts, but that  of the political branches, to shape the institutions of government in  such fashion as to comply with the laws and the Constitution.  In the  context of the present case: It is for the courts to remedy past or  imminent official interference with individual inmates' presentation of  claims to the courts; it is for the political branches of the State and Federal Governments to manage prisons in such fashion that official  interference with the presentation of claims will not occur.  Of course  the two roles briefly and partially coincide when a court, in granting  relief against actual harm that has been suffered, or that will  imminently be suffered, by a particular individual or class of  individuals, orders the alteration of an institutional organization or  procedure that causes the harm.  But the distinction between the two  roles would be obliterated if, to invoke intervention of the courts, no actual or imminent harm were needed, but merely the status of being  subject to a governmental institution that was not organized or managed  properly.  If-to take another example from prison life-a healthy inmate  who had suffered no deprivation of needed medical treatment were able to  claim violation of his constitutional right to medical care, see Estelle  v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 103 (1976), simply on the ground that the  prison medical facilities were inadequate, the essential distinction between judge and executive would have disappeared: it would have become  the function of the courts to assure adequate medical care in prisons.


7
The foregoing analysis would not be pertinent here if, as respondents seem to assume, the right at issue-the right to which the  actual or threatened harm must pertain-were the right to a law library  or to legal assistance.  But Bounds established no such right, any more  than Estelle established a right to a prison hospital.  The right that  Bounds acknowledged was the (already well-established) right of access  to the courts.  E.g., Bounds, 430 U. S., at 817, 821, 828.  In the cases  to which Bounds traced its roots, we had protected that right by  prohibiting State prison officials from actively interfering with  inmates' attempts to prepare legal documents, e.g., Johnson v. Avery,  393 U. S. 483, 484, 489-490 (1969), or file them, e.g., Ex parte Hull,  312 U. S. 546, 547-549 (1941), and by requiring state courts to waive filing fees, e.g., Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252, 258 (1959), or transcript fees, e.g., Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 19 (1956), for  indigent inmates.  Bounds focused on the same entitlement of access to  the courts.  Although it affirmed a court order requiring North Carolina  to make law library facilities available to inmates, it stressed that  that was merely "one constitutionally acceptable method to  assure  meaningful access to the courts," and that "our decision  here . . . does not foreclose alternative means to achieve that  goal."  Bounds, 430 U.  S., at 830.  In other words, prison law libraries and legal assistance  programs are not ends in themselves, but only the means for ensuring "a  reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed violations of  fundamental constitutional rights to the courts."  Id., at 825.


8
Because Bounds did not create an abstract, free-standing right  to a law library or legal assistance, an inmate cannot establish  relevant actual injury simply by establishing that his prison's law  library or legal assistance program is sub-par in some theoretical  sense.  That would be the precise analogue of the healthy inmate  claiming constitutional violation because of the inadequacy of the  prison infirmary. Insofar as the right vindicated by Bounds is  concerned, "meaningful access to the courts is the touchstone," Bounds,  430 U. S., at 823 (internal quotation marks omitted), and the inmate  therefore must go one step further and demonstrate that the alleged  shortcomings in the library or legal assistance program hindered his  efforts to pursue a legal claim.  He might show, for example, that a complaint he prepared was dismissed for failure to satisfy some technical requirement which, because of deficiencies in the prison's  legal assistance facilities, he could not have known. Or that he had  suffered arguably actionable harm that he wished to bring before the  courts, but was so stymied by inadequacies of the law library that he  was unable even to file a complaint.


9
Although Bounds itself made no mention of an actual-injury requirement, it can hardly be thought to have eliminated that constitutional prerequisite.  And actual injury is apparent on the face  of almost all the opinions in the 35-year line of access-to-courts cases  on which Bounds relied, see id., at 821-825.2  Moreover, the  assumption of an actual-injury requirement seems to us implicit in the  opinion's statement that "we encourage local experimentation" in various  methods of assuring  access to the courts.  Id., at 832.  One such experiment, for example, might replace libraries with some minimal access to legal advice and a system of court-provided forms such as  those  that contained the original complaints in two of the more  significant inmate-initiated cases in recent years, Sandin v. Conner,  515 U. S. ___ (1995), and Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S. 1 (1992)-forms  that asked the inmates to provide only the facts  and not to attempt any  legal analysis.  We hardly think that what we meant by "experimenting"  with such an alternative was simply announcing it, whereupon suit would  immediately lie to declare it theoretically inadequate and bring the  experiment to a close.  We think we envisioned, instead, that the new  program would remain in place at least until some inmate could demonstrate that a nonfrivolous3 legal claim had been frustrated or  was being impeded.4


10
It must be acknowledged that several statements in Bounds went  beyond the right of access recognized in the earlier cases on which it  relied, which was a right to bring to court a grievance that the inmate  wished to present, see, e.g., Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S., at 547-548;  Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S., at 13-16; Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S.,  at 489. These statements appear to suggest that the State must enable  the prisoner to discover grievances, and to litigate effectively once in  court. See Bounds, supra, at 825-826, and n. 14.  These elaborations upon the right of access to the courts have no antecedent in our pre-Bounds cases, and we now disclaim them.  To demand the conferral of  such sophisticated legal capabilities upon a mostly uneducated and  indeed largely illiterate prison population is effectively to demand  permanent provision of counsel, which we do not believe the Constitution  requires.


11
Finally, we must observe that the injury requirement is not satisfied by just any type of frustrated legal claim.  Nearly all of the  access-to-courts cases in the Bounds line involved attempts by inmates  to pursue direct appeals from the convictions for which they were  incarcerated, see Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 354 (1963);  Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S., at 253, 258; Griffin v. Illinois, supra, at  13, 18; Cochran v. Kansas, 316 U. S. 255, 256 (1942), or habeas  petitions, see Johnson v. Avery, supra, at 489; Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.  S. 708, 709-710 (1961); Ex parte Hull, supra, at 547-548.  In Wolff  v.  McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974), we extended this universe of relevant  claims only slightly, to "civil rights actions"-i.e., actions under 42 U. S. C. Section(s) 1983 to vindicate "basic constitutional rights."  418 U. S., at 579.  Significantly, we felt compelled to justify even  this slight extension of the right of access to the courts, stressing  that "the demarcation line between civil rights actions and habeas  petitions is not always clear," and that "[i]t is futile to contend that  the Civil Rights Act of 1871 has less importance in our constitutional  scheme than does the Great Writ."  Ibid.  The prison law library imposed  in Bounds itself was far from an all-subject facility.  In rejecting the contention that the State's  proposed collection was inadequate, the  District Court there said:


12
"This Court does not feel inmates need the entire U. S. Code Annotated.  Most of that code deals with federal laws and regulations  that would never involve a state prisoner. . . .


13
"It is also the opinion of this Court that the cost of N. C. Digest and Modern Federal Practice Digest will surpass the usefulness of  these research aids.  They cover mostly areas not of concern to  inmates."5 Supplemental App. to Pet. for Cert. in Bounds v. Smith, O.  T. 1976, No. 75-915, p. 18.


14
In other words, Bounds does not guarantee inmates the wherewithal to transform themselves into litigating engines capable of  filing everything from shareholder derivative actions to slip-and-fall  claims. The tools it requires to be provided are those that the inmates  need in order to attack their sentences, directly or collaterally, and  in order to challenge the conditions of their confinement.  Impairment  of any other litigating capacity is simply one of the incidental (and perfectly constitutional) consequences of conviction and incarceration.

B.

15
Here the District Court identified only two instances of actual  injury.  In describing ADOC's failures with respect to illiterate and  non-English-speaking prisoners, it found that "[a]s a result of the  inability to receive adequate legal assistance, prisoners who are slow  readers have had their cases dismissed with prejudice," and that  "[o]ther prisoners have been unable to file legal actions."  834 F.  Supp., at 1558.  Although the use of the plural suggests that several  prisoners sustained these actual harms, the court identified only one  prisoner in each instance.  Id., at 1558, nn. 37 (lawsuit of inmate  Bartholic dismissed with prejudice), 38 (inmate Harris unable to  file a legal action).


16
Petitioners contend that "any lack of access experienced by these two inmates is not attributable to unconstitutional State policies," because ADOC "has met its constitutional obligations," Brief  for Petitioners 32, n. 22.  The claim appears to be that all inmates,  including the illiterate and non-English-speaking, have a right to  nothing more than "physical access to excellent libraries, plus help  from legal assistants and law clerks."  Id., at 35.  This misreads  Bounds, which as we have said guarantees no particular methodology but  rather the conferral of a capability-the capability of bringing  contemplated challenges  to sentences or conditions of confinement before  the courts.  When any inmate, even an illiterate or non-English-speaking  inmate, shows that an actionable claim of this nature which he desired  to bring has been lost or rejected, or that the presentation of such a  claim is currently being prevented, because this capability of filing  suit has not been provided, he demonstrates that the State has failed to  furnish "adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons  trained in the law," Bounds, 430 U. S., at 828 (emphasis added).  Of  course, we leave it to prison officials to determine how best to ensure  that inmates with language problems have a reasonably adequate opportunity to file nonfrivolous legal claims challenging their convictions or conditions of confinement.  But it is that capability,  rather than the capability of turning pages in a law library, that is  the touchstone.

C.

17
Having rejected petitioners' argument that the injuries suffered  by Bartholic and Harris do not count, we turn to the question whether  those injuries, and the other findings of the District Court, support  the injunction ordered in this case.  The actual-injury requirement  would hardly serve the purpose we  have described above-of preventing  courts from undertaking tasks assigned to the political branches-if once  a plaintiff demonstrated harm from one particular inadequacy in  government administration, the court were authorized to remedy all inadequacies in that administration.  The remedy must of course be limited to the inadequacy that produced the injury-in-fact that the  plaintiff has established.  See Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U. S. ___, ___   (1995) (slip op., at 16, 18) ("the nature of the . . . remedy is to be  determined by the nature and scope of  the constitutional violation")   (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).


18
This is no less true with respect to class actions than with respect to other suits.  "That a suit may be a class action, . . . adds  nothing to the question of standing, for even named plaintiffs who  represent a class `must allege and show that they personally have been  injured, not that injury has been suffered by other, unidentified  members of the class to which they belong and which they purport to  represent.'" Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S.  26, 40, n. 20 (1976), quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 502   (1975).  The general allegations of the complaint in the present case  may well have sufficed to claim injury by named plaintiffs, and hence  standing to demand remediation, with respect to various alleged inadequacies in the prison system, including failure to provide adequate  legal assistance to non-English-speaking inmates and lockdown prisoners.  That point is irrelevant now, however, for we are beyond the pleading  stage.


19
"Since they are not mere pleading requirements, but rather an  indispensable part of the plaintiff's case, each element [of standing]  must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the  plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of  evidence required at the successive stages of litigation.  At the  pleading stage, general factual allegations of injury resulting from the  defendant's conduct may suffice, for on a motion to dismiss we presume  that general allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary  to support the claim.  In response to a summary judgment motion, however, the plaintiff can no longer rest on such mere allegations, but  must set forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts, which for  purposes of the summary judgment motion will be taken to be true.  And  at the final stage, those  facts (if controverted) must be supported  adequately by the evidence adduced at trial."  Lujan v. Defenders of  Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561 (1992) (citations and internal quotation  marks omitted).


20
After the trial in this case, the court found actual injury on  the part of only one named plaintiff, Bartholic; and the cause of that  injury-the inadequacy which the suit empowered the court to remedy-was  failure of the prison to provide the special services that Bartholic  would have needed, in light of his illiteracy, to avoid dismissal of his  case.  At the outset, therefore, we can eliminate from the proper scope  of this injunction provisions directed at special services or special facilities required by non-English-speakers, by prisoners in lockdown,  and by the inmate population at large.  If inadequacies of this  character exist, they have not been found to have harmed any plaintiff  in this lawsuit, and hence were not the proper object of this District  Court's remediation.6


21
As to remediation of the inadequacy that caused Bartholic's injury, a further question remains: Was that inadequacy widespread enough to justify systemwide relief?  The only findings supporting the  proposition that, in all of ADOC's facilities, an illiterate inmate  wishing to file a claim would be unable to receive the assistance  necessary to do so were (1)  the finding with respect to Bartholic, at  the Florence facility, and (2) the finding that Harris, while  incarcerated at Perryville, had once been "unable to file [a] legal  actio[n]."   App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a.  These two instances were a  patently inadequate basis for a conclusion of systemwide violation and  imposition of systemwide relief.  See Dayton Bd. of Ed. v. Brinkman, 433  U. S. 406, 417 (1977) ("instead of tailoring a remedy commensurate with  the three specific violations, the Court of Appeals imposed a systemwide remedy going beyond their scope"); id., at 420 ("only if there has been  a systemwide impact may there be a systemwide remedy"); Califano v.  Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979) ("the scope of injunctive relief is  dictated by the extent of the violation established, not by the   geographical extent of the plaintiff class").


22
To be sure, the District Court also noted that "the trial testimony . . . indicated that there are prisoners who are unable to  research the law because of their functional illiteracy," 834 F. Supp.,  at 1558.  As we have discussed, however, the Constitution does not  require that prisoners (literate or illiterate) be able to conduct  generalized research, but only that they be able to present their  grievances to the courts-a more limited capability that can be produced  by a much more limited degree of legal assistance.  Apart from the  dismissal of Bartholic's claim with prejudice, and Harris's inability to  file his claim, there is no finding, and as far as we can discern from the record no evidence, that in Arizona prisons illiterate prisoners  cannot obtain the minimal help necessary to file particular claims that  they wish to bring before the courts.  The constitutional violation has  not been shown to be systemwide, and granting a remedy beyond what was  necessary to provide relief to Harris and Bartholic was therefore  improper.7

III.

23
There are further reasons why the order here cannot stand. We  held in Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78 (1987), that a prison regulation  impinging on inmates' constitutional rights "is valid if it is  reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." Id., at 89.  Such a deferential standard is necessary, we explained,


24
"if `prison administrators . . ., and not the courts, [are] to  make the difficult judgments concerning institutional operations.'   Subjecting the day-to-day judgments of prison officials to an inflexible  strict-scrutiny analysis would seriously hamper their ability to  anticipate security problems and to adopt innovative solutions to the  intractable problems of prison administration."  Ibid. (citation  omitted), quoting Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc.  433 U. S. 119, 128 (1977).


25
These are the same concerns that led us to encourage "local experimentation" in Bounds, see supra, at 8, and we think it quite obvious that Bounds and Turner must be read in pari materia.


26
The District Court here failed to accord adequate deference to  the judgment of the prison authorities in at least three significant  respects.  First, in concluding that ADOC's restrictions on lockdown  prisoners' access to law libraries were unjustified.  Turner's principle  of deference has special force with regard to that issue, since the  inmates in lockdown include "the most dangerous and violent prisoners in  the Arizona prison system," and other inmates presenting special  disciplinary and security concerns.  Brief for Petitioners 5.  The  District Court made much of the fact that lockdown prisoners routinely experience delays in receiving legal materials or legal assistance, some  as long as 16 days, 834 F. Supp., at 1557, and n. 23, but so long as  they are the product of prison regulations reasonably related to  legitimate penological interests, such delays are not of constitutional  significance, even where they result in actual injury (which, of course,  the District Court did not find here).


27
Second, the injunction imposed by the District Court was inordinately-indeed, wildly-intrusive.  There is no need to belabor this  point.  One need only read the order, see App. to Pet. for Cert.  61a-85a, to appreciate that it is the ne plus ultra of what our opinions  have lamented as a court's "in the name of the Constitution, becom[ing]  . . . enmeshed in the minutiae of prison operations."  Bell v. Wolfish,  441 U. S. 520, 562 (1979).


28
Finally, the order was developed through a process that failed  to give adequate consideration to the views of state prison authorities.  We have said that "[t]he strong considerations of comity that require  giving a state court system that has convicted a defendant the first  opportunity to correct its own errors . . . also require giving the  States the  first opportunity to correct errors made in the internal  administration of their prisons."  Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475,  492 (1973).  For an illustration of the proper procedure in a case such  as this, we need look no further than Bounds itself.  There, after  granting summary judgment for the inmates, the District Court refrained  from "`dictat[ing] precisely what course the State should follow.'"  Bounds, 430 U. S., at 818.  Rather, recognizing that "determining the  `appropriate relief to be ordered . . . presents a difficult problem,'"  the court "`charge[d] the Department of Correction with the task of devising a Constitutionally sound program' to assure inmate access to  the courts."  Id., at 818-819.  The State responded with a proposal,  which the District Court ultimately approved with minor changes, after  considering objections raised by the inmates. Id., at 819-820.  We  praised this procedure, observing that the court had "scrupulously  respected the limits on [its] role," by "not . . . thrust[ing] itself  into prison administration" and instead permitting "[p]rison  administrators [to] exercis[e] wide discretion within the bounds of constitutional requirements."  Id., at 832-833.


29
As Bounds was an exemplar of what should be done, this case is a  model of what should not.  The District Court totally failed to heed the  admonition of Preiser.  Having found a violation of the right of access  to the courts, it conferred upon its special master, a law professor  from Flushing, New York, rather than upon ADOC officials, the  responsibility for devising a remedial plan. To make matters worse, it  severely limited the remedies that the master could choose.  Because, in   the court's view, its order in an earlier access-to-courts case (an  order that adopted the recommendations of the same special master) had  "resolved successfully" most of the issues involved  in this litigation, the court instructed that as to those issues it would implement the  earlier order statewide, "with any modifications that the parties and  Special Master determine are  necessary due to the particular  circumstances of the prison facility."  App. to Pet. for Cert. 88a   (footnote omitted).  This will not do.  The State was entitled to far  more than an opportunity for rebuttal, and on that ground alone this  order would have to be set aside.8


30
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Court  of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with  this opinion.


31

It is so ordered.



32
djq  Justice Thomas, concurring.


33
The Constitution charges federal judges with deciding cases and  controversies, not with running state prisons.  Yet, too frequently,  federal district courts in the name of the Constitution effect wholesale  takeovers of state correctional facilities and run them by judicial  decree.  This case is a textbook example.  Dissatisfied with the quality  of the law libraries and the legal assistance at Arizona's correctional institutions, the District Court imposed a statewide decree on the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC), dictating in excruciatingly  minute detail a program to assist inmates in the filing of  lawsuits-right down to permissible noise levels in library reading  rooms.  Such gross overreaching by a federal district court simply  cannot be tolerated in our federal system. Principles of federalism and  separation of powers dictate that exclusive responsibility for  administering state prisons resides with the State and its officials.


34
Of course, prison officials must maintain their facilities consistent with the restrictions and obligations imposed by the Constitution.  In Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817 (1977), we recognized  as part of the State's constitutional obligations a duty to provide  prison inmates with law libraries or other legal assistance at state  expense, an obligation we described as part of a loosely defined "right  of access to the courts" enjoyed by prisoners.  While the Constitution  may guarantee state inmates an opportunity to bring suit to vindicate  their federal constitutional rights, I find no basis in the  Constitution-and Bounds cited none-for the right to have the government  finance the endeavor.


35
I join the majority opinion because it places sensible and much-needed limitations on the seemingly limitless right to assistance  created in Bounds and because it clarifies the scope of the federal  courts' authority to subject state prisons to remedial decrees.  I write  separately to make clear my doubts about the validity of Bounds and to  reiterate my observation in Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U. S. ___ (1995),  that the federal judiciary has for the last half-century been exercising "equitable" powers and issuing structural decrees entirely out of line  with its constitutional mandate.

I.
A.

36
This case is not about a right of "access to the courts." There  is no proof that Arizona has prevented even a single inmate from filing  a civil rights lawsuit or submitting a petition for a writ of habeas  corpus.  Instead, this case is about the extent to which the  Constitution requires a State to finance or otherwise assist a  prisoner's efforts to bring suit against the State and its officials.


37
In Bounds v. Smith, supra, we recognized for the first time a  "fundamental constitutional right" of all inmates to have the State  "assist [them] in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal  papers."  430 U. S., at 828.  We were not explicit as to the forms the  State's assistance must take, but we did hold that, at a minimum, States  must furnish prisoners "with adequate law libraries or adequate  assistance from persons trained in the law."  Ibid.  Although our cases  prior to Bounds occasionally referenced a constitutional right of access  to the courts, we had never before recognized a freestanding  constitutional right  that requires the States to "shoulder affirmative  obligations,"  id., at 824, in order to "insure that inmate access to the  courts is adequate, effective, and meaningful."  Id., at 822.


38
Recognition of such broad and novel principles of constitutional  law are rare enough under our system of law that I would have expected  the Bounds Court to explain at length the constitutional basis for the  right to state-provided legal materials and legal assistance.  But the  majority opinion in Bounds failed to identify a single provision of the  Constitution to support the right created in that case, a fact that did  not go unnoticed in strong dissents by Chief Justice Burger and then-Justice Rehnquist.  See id., at 833-834 (Burger, C. J., dissenting)  ("The Court leaves us unenlightened as to the source of the `right of  access to the courts' which it perceives or of the requirement that  States `foot the bill' for assuring such access for prisoners who want  to act as legal researchers and brief writers"); id., at 840 (Rehnquist,  J., dissenting) ("[T]he `fundamental constitutional right of access to  the courts' which the Court announces today is created virtually out of  whole cloth with little or no reference to the Constitution from which  it is supposed to be derived").  The dissents' calls for an explanation as to which provision of the Constitution guarantees prisoners a right  to consult a law library or a legal assistant, however, went unanswered.  This is perhaps not surprising: just three years before Bounds was  decided we admitted that the "[t]he precise rationale" for many of the  "access to the courts" cases on which Bounds relied had "never been  explicitly stated," and that no Clause that had thus far been advanced  "by itself provides an entirely satisfactory basis for the result  reached."  Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 608-609 (1974).


39
The weakness in the Court's constitutional analysis in Bounds is  punctuated by our inability, in the 20 years since, to agree upon the  constitutional source of the supposed right.  We  have described the  right articulated in Bounds as a "consequence" of due process, Murray v.  Giarratano, 492 U. S. 1, 11, n. 6 (1989) (plurality opinion) (citing  Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S. 396, 419 (1974)), as an "aspect" of  equal protection, 492 U. S., at 11, n. 6 (citation omitted), or as an   "equal protection guarantee," Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551, 557   (1987). In no instance, however, have we engaged in rigorous constitutional analysis of the basis for the asserted right. Thus, even  as we endeavor to address the question presented in this case-whether  the District Court's order "exceeds the constitutional requirements set  forth in Bounds," Pet. for Cert. i-we do so without knowing which  Amendment to the Constitution governs our inquiry.


40
It goes without saying that we ordinarily require more exactitude when evaluating asserted constitutional rights.  "As a general matter, the Court has always been reluctant" to extend constitutional protection to "un-charted area[s]," where the "guideposts  for responsible decisionmaking . . . are scarce and open-ended."  Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 125 (1992).  It is a bedrock  principle of judicial restraint that a right be lodged firmly in the  text or tradition of a specific constitutional provision before we will  recognize it as fundamental.  Strict adherence to this approach is  essential if we are to fulfill our constitutionally assigned role of  giving full effect to the mandate of the Framers without infusing the constitutional fabric with our own political views.

B.

41
In lieu of constitutional text, history, or tradition, Bounds turned primarily to precedent in recognizing the right to state assistance in the researching and filing of prisoner claims.  Our cases,  however, had never recognized a right of the kind articulated in Bounds,  and, in my opinion, could not reasonably have been read to support such  a right. Prior to Bounds, two lines of cases dominated our so-called  "access to the courts" jurisprudence.  One of these lines, rooted  largely in principles of equal protection, invalidated state filing and   transcript fees and imposed limited affirmative obligations on the  States to ensure that their criminal procedures did not discriminate on  the basis of poverty.  These cases recognized a  right to equal access,  and any affirmative obligations imposed (e.g., a free transcript or  counsel on a first appeal as of right) were strictly limited to ensuring  equality of access, not access in its own right.  In a second line of  cases, we invalidated state prison regulations that restricted or  effectively prohibited inmates from filing habeas corpus petitions or  civil rights lawsuits in federal court to vindicate federally protected rights. While the cases in this line did guarantee a certain amount of  access to the federal courts, they imposed no affirmative obligations on  the States to facilitate access, and held only that States may not  "abridge or impair" prisoners' efforts to petition a federal court for  vindication of federal rights.  Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546, 549   (1941).   Without pausing to consider either the reasoning behind, or the constitutional basis for, each of these independent lines of caselaw,  the Court in Bounds engaged in a loose and selective reading of our  precedents as it created a freestanding and novel right to  state-supported legal assistance.  Despite the Court's purported  reliance on prior cases, Bounds in fact represented a major departure  both from precedent and historical practice.

1.

42
In a series of cases beginning with Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.  S. 12 (1956), the Court invalidated state rules that required indigent  criminal defendants to pay for trial transcripts or to pay other fees  necessary to have their appeals or habeas corpus petitions heard.  According to the Bounds Court, these decisions "struck down restrictions  and required remedial measures to insure that inmate access to the  courts is adequate, effective, and meaningful."  430 U. S., at 822. This  is inaccurate. Notwithstanding the suggestion in Bounds, our transcript  and fee cases did not establish a freestanding right of access to the courts, meaningful or otherwise.


43
In Griffin,, for instance, we invalidated an Illinois rule that  charged criminal defendants a fee for a trial transcript necessary to  secure full direct appellate review of a criminal conviction.  See 351  U. S., at 13-14; id., at 22 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment).  See also Ross v. Moffitt, supra, at 605-606.  Though we held the fee to  be unconstitutional, our decision did not turn on the effectiveness or  adequacy of the access afforded to criminal defendants generally.  We  were quite explicit in reaffirming the century-old principle that "a  State is not required by the Federal Constitution to provide appellate courts or a right to appellate review at all."  Griffin, supra, at 18   (emphasis added) (citing McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687-688   (1894)).  Indeed, the Court in Griffin was unanimous on this point.  See  351 U. S., at 21 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment) ("[I]t is now  settled that due process of law does not require a State to afford  review of criminal judgments"); id., at 27 (Burton, J., dissenting)  ("Illinois, as  the majority admit, could thus deny an appeal altogether  in a criminal case without denying due process of law"); id., at 36    (Harlan J., dissenting) ("The majority of the Court concedes that the Fourteenth Amendment does not require the States to provide  for any kind  of appellate review").9  In light of the Griffin Court's unanimous  pronouncement that a State is not constitutionally required to provide  any court access to criminals who wish to challenge their convictions,  the Bounds Court's description of Griffin as ensuring "`adequate and  effective appellate review,'" 430 U. S., at 822 (quoting Griffin, supra,  at 20), is unsustainable.


44
Instead, Griffin rested on the quite different principle that,  while a State is not obliged to provide appeals in criminal cases, the  review a State chooses to afford must not be administered in a way that  excludes indigents from the appellate process solely on account of their  poverty. There is no mistaking the principle that motivated Griffin:


45
"It is true that a State is not required by the Federal Constitution to provide appellate courts or a right to appellate review  at all.  But that is not to say that a State that does grant appellate  review can do so in a way that discriminates against some convicted  defendants on account of their poverty. . . .  [A]t all stages of the  proceedings the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses protect   [indigent persons] from invidious discriminations. . . .


46
". . . There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a  man gets depends on the amount of money he has.  Destitute defendants  must be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants who have  money enough to buy transcripts."  351 U. S., at 18-19 (plurality  opinion) (citation omitted).


47
Justice Frankfurter, who provided the fifth vote for the majority, confirmed in a separate writing that it was invidious discrimination, and not the denial of adequate, effective, or meaningful  access to the courts, that rendered the Illinois regulation  unconstitutional: "[W]hen a State deems it wise and just that  convictions be susceptible to review by an appellate court, it cannot by  force of its exactions draw a line which precludes convicted indigent  persons . . . from securing such a review . . . ."  Id., at 23 (opinion  concurring in judgment). Thus, contrary to the characterization in  Bounds, Griffin stands not for the proposition that all inmates are  entitled to adequate appellate review of their criminal convictions, but  for the more modest rule that, if the State chooses to afford appellate review, it "can no more discriminate on account of poverty than on account of religion, race, or color." Griffin, supra, at 17 (plurality  opinion).10


48
If we left any doubt as to the basis of our decision in Griffin,  we eliminated it two decades later in Douglas v. California, 372 U. S.  353 (1963), where we held for the first time that States must provide  assistance of counsel on a first appeal as of right for all indigent  defendants.  Like Griffin, Douglas turned not on a right of access per  se, but rather on the right not to be denied, on the basis of poverty,  access afforded to others.  We did not say in Douglas that indigents have a right to a "meaningful appeal" that could not be realized absent  appointed counsel.  Compare Bounds, 430 U. S., at 823. What we did say  is that, in the absence of state-provided counsel, "[t]here is lacking  that equality demanded by the Fourteenth Amendment where the rich man,  who appeals as of right, enjoys the benefit of counse[l] . . . while the  indigent  . . . is forced to shift for himself."  Douglas, supra, at  357-358. Just as in Griffin, where "we held that a State may not grant appellate review in such a way as to discriminate against  some convicted  defendants on account of their poverty," Douglas, 372 U. S., at 355, the  evil motivating our decision in Douglas was "discrimination against the  indigent."  Ibid.11


49
Our transcript and fee cases were, therefore, limited holdings  rooted in principles of equal protection.  In Bounds, these cases were  recharacterized almost beyond recognition, as the Court created a new  and different right on behalf of prisoners-a right to have the State pay  for law libraries or other forms of legal assistance without regard to  the equality of access.  Only by divorcing our prior holdings from their reasoning, and by elevating dicta over constitutional principle, was the  Court able to reach such a result.


50
The unjustified transformation of the right to nondiscriminatory  access to the courts into the broader, untethered right to legal  assistance generally, would be reason enough for me to conclude that  Bounds was wrongly decided. However, even assuming that Bounds properly  relied upon the Griffin line of cases for the proposition for which  those cases actually stood, the Bounds Court failed to address a  significant intervening development in our jurisprudence: the fact that  the equal protection theory underlying Griffin and its progeny had largely been abandoned prior to Bounds.  The provisions invalidated in  our transcript and fee cases were all facially neutral administrative  regulations that had a disparate impact on the poor; there is no  indication in any of those cases that the State imposed the challenged  fee with the purpose of deliberately discriminating against indigent  defendants.  See, e.g., Douglas, 372 U. S., at 361 (Harlan, J.,  dissenting) (criticizing the Court for invalidating a state law "of  general  applicability" solely because it "may affect the poor more  harshly than it does the rich"). In the years between Douglas and  Bounds, however, we rejected a disparate impact theory of the Equal  Protection Clause.  That the doctrinal basis for Griffin and its progeny  has largely been undermined-and in fact had been before Bounds was decided-confirms the invalidity of the right to law libraries and legal  assistance created in Bounds.


51
We first cast doubt on the proposition that a facially neutral  law violates the Equal Protection Clause solely because it has a  disparate impact on the poor in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v.  Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973).  In Rodriguez, the respondents challenged  Texas' traditional system of financing public education under the Equal  Protection Clause on  the ground that, under that system, "some poorer  people receive  less expensive educations than other more affluent  people."  Id., at 19.  In rejecting the claim that this sort of  disparate  impact amounted to unconstitutional discrimination, we  declined  the respondents' invitation to extend the rationale of Griffin, Douglas, and similar cases.  We explained that, under those cases,  unless a group claiming discrimination on the basis of poverty can show  that it is "completely unable to pay for some desired benefit, and as a  consequence, . . . sustained an absolute deprivation of a meaningful  opportunity to enjoy that benefit," 411 U. S., at 20 (emphasis added),  strict scrutiny of a classification based on wealth does not apply.  Because the respondents in Rodriguez had not shown that "the children in districts having relatively low assessable property values are receiving  no public education," but rather claimed only that "they are receiving a  poorer quality education than that available to children in districts  having more assessable wealth," id., at 23 (emphasis added), we held  that the "Texas system does not operate to the peculiar disadvantage of  any suspect class," id., at 28.  After Rodriguez, it was clear that "wealth discrimination alone [does not] provid[e] an adequate basis for  invoking strict scrutiny," id., at 29, and that, "at least where wealth  is involved, the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute  equality or precisely equal advantages," id., at 24.  See also Kadrmas  v. Dickinson Public Schools, 487 U. S. 450, 458 (1988); Harris v. McRae,  448 U. S. 297, 322-323 (1980); Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, 470-471   (1977).12


52
We rejected a disparate impact theory of the Equal Protection Clause altogether in Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 239 (1976),  decided just one Term before Bounds.  There we  flatly rejected the idea  that "a law, neutral on its face and serving ends otherwise within the  power of government to pursue, is invalid under the Equal Protection  Clause simply because it may affect a greater proportion of one race  than of another."  426 U. S., at 242.  We held that, absent proof of  discriminatory purpose, a law or official act does not violate the  Constitution "solely because it has a . . . disproportionate impact."  Id., at 239 (emphasis in original).  See also id., at 240 (acknowledging "the basic equal protection principle that the invidious quality of a  law claimed to be racially discriminatory must ultimately be traced to a  racially discriminatory purpose").  At bottom, Davis was a recognition  of "the settled rule that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal  laws, not equal results."  Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney,  442 U. S. 256, 273 (1979).13


53
The Davis Court was motivated in no small part by the potentially radical implications of the Griffin/ Douglas rationale.  As  Justice Harlan recognized in Douglas, "[e]very financial exaction which  the State imposes on a uniform basis is more easily satisfied by the  well-to-do than by the indigent." 372 U. S., at 361 (dissenting  opinion). Under a disparate impact theory, Justice Harlan argued,  regulatory measures always considered to be constitutionally valid, such  as sales taxes, state university tuition, and criminal penalties, would  have to be struck down.  See id., at 361-362.14  Echoing Justice  Harlan, we rejected in Davis the disparate impact approach in part because of the recognition that "[a] rule that a statute designed to  serve neutral ends is nevertheless invalid, absent compelling justification, if in practice it benefits or burdens one race more than  another would be far reaching and would raise serious questions about,  and perhaps invalidate, a whole range of tax, welfare, public service,  regulatory, and licensing statutes that may be more burdensome to the  poor and to the average black than to the more affluent white."  426 U.  S., at 248.  See also id., at 248, n. 14.


54
Given the unsettling ramifications of a disparate impact theory,  it is not surprising that we eventually reached the point where we could  no longer extend the reasoning of Griffin and Douglas.  For instance, in  Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600 (1974), decided just three years before  Bounds, we declined to extend Douglas to require States to provide  indigents with counsel in discretionary state appeals or in seeking discretionary review in this Court.  We explained in Ross that "[t]he  Fourteenth Amendment `does not require absolute equality or precisely  equal advantages,'" 417 U. S., at 612 (quoting Rodriguez, 411 U. S., at  24), and that it "does [not] require the State to `equalize economic  conditions,'"  417 U. S., at 612 (quoting Griffin, 351 U. S., at 23   (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment)).  We again declined to extend  Douglas in Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S., at 555, where we rejected  a claim that the Constitution requires the States to provide counsel in  state postconviction proceedings.  And we found Ross  and Finley  controlling in Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U. S. 1 (1989), where we held  that defendants sentenced to death, like all other defendants, have no  right to state-appointed counsel in state collateral proceedings.  See  also United States v. MacCollom, 426 U. S. 317 (1976) (federal habeas  statute permitting district judge to deny free transcript to indigent petitioner raising frivolous claim does not violate the Constitution).


55
In sum, the Bounds Court's reliance on our transcript and fee cases was misplaced in two significant respects.  First, those cases did  not stand for the proposition for which Bounds cited them: they were  about equal access, not access per se.  Second, the constitutional basis  for Griffin and its progeny had been seriously undermined in the years  preceding Bounds.  Thus,  even to the extent that Bounds intended to rely  on those cases for the propositions for which they actually stood, their  underlying rationale had been largely discredited.  These cases,  rooted  in largely obsolete theories of equal protection, do not  support the right to law libraries and legal assistance recognized in Bounds. Our  repeated holdings declining to extend these decisions only confirm this  conclusion.

2.

56
The Bounds Court relied on a second line of cases in announcing  the right to state-financed law libraries or legal assistance for  prisoners. These cases, beginning with our decision in Ex parte Hull,  prevent the States from imposing arbitrary obstacles to attempts by  prisoners to file claims asserting federal constitutional rights.  Although this line deals with access in its own right, and not equal  access as in Griffin and Douglas, these cases do not impose any  affirmative obligations on the States to improve the prisoners' chances  of success.


57
Bounds identified Ex parte Hull as the first case to "recogniz[e]" a "constitutional right of access to the courts." 430 U.  S., at 821-822. In Ex parte Hull, we considered a prison regulation that  required prisoners to submit their habeas corpus petitions to a prison  administrator before filing them with the court.  Only if the  administrator determined that a petition was "`properly drawn'" could  the prisoner submit it in a federal court.  312 U. S., at 548-549   (quoting regulation).  We invalidated the regulation, but the right we  acknowledged in doing so bears no resemblance to the right generated in  Bounds.


58
Our reasoning in Ex parte Hull consists of a straightforward, and rather limited, principle:


59
"[T]he state and its officers may not abridge or impair petitioner's right to apply to a federal court for a writ of habeas  corpus.  Whether a petition for writ of habeas corpus addressed to a  federal court is properly drawn and what allegations it must contain are  questions for that court alone to determine."  Id., at 549.


60
The "right of access" to the courts articulated in Ex parte Hull  thus imposed no affirmative obligations on the States; we stated only  that a State may not "abridge or impair" a prisoner's ability to file a  habeas petition in federal court.15 Ex parte Hull thus provides an  extraordinarily weak starting point for concluding that the Constitution  requires States to fund and otherwise assist prisoner legal research by  providing law libraries or legal assistance.


61
Two subsequent decisions of this Court worked a moderate expansion of Ex parte Hull.  The first, Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483   (1969), invalidated a Tennessee prison regulation that prohibited  inmates from advising or assisting one another in the preparation of  habeas corpus petitions.  In striking down the regulation, the Court  twice quoted Ex parte Hull's holding that a State may not "abridge or  impair" a petitioner's efforts to file a petition for a writ of habeas  corpus. See 393 U. S., at 486-487, 488.  In contrast to Ex parte Hull,  however, Johnson focused not on the respective institutional roles of  state prisons and the federal courts but on "the fundamental importance of the writ of habeas corpus in our constitutional scheme."  393 U. S.,  at 485. Still, the Court did not hold that the Constitution places an  affirmative obligation on the States to facilitate the filing of habeas  petitions.  The Court held only that a State may not "den[y] or  obstruc[t]" a prisoner's ability to file a habeas petition.  Ibid.  We  extended the holding of Johnson in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539   (1974), where we struck down a similar regulation that prevented inmates  from assisting one another in the preparation of civil rights complaints.  We held that the "right of access to the courts, upon which  Avery was premised, is founded in the Due Process Clause and assures  that no person will be denied the opportunity to present to the  judiciary allegations concerning violations of fundamental  constitutional rights."  Id., at 579.  Again, the right was framed  exclusively in the negative.  See ibid. (opportunity to file a civil  rights action may not be "denied"). Thus, prior to Bounds, "if a  prisoner incarcerated pursuant to a final judgment of conviction [was]  not prevented from physical access to the federal courts in order that  he may file therein petitions for relief which Congress has authorized  those courts to grant, he ha[d] been accorded the only constitutional  right of access to the courts that our cases ha[d] articulated in a reasoned way."  Bounds, 430 U. S., at 839-840 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (citing Ex parte Hull).

C.

62
That Ex parte Hull, Johnson, and Wolff were decided on different  constitutional grounds from Griffin and Douglas is clear enough.  According to Bounds, however, "[e]ssentially the same standards of  access were applied" in all of these cases. 430 U. S., at 823.  This  observation was wrong, but the equation of these two lines of cases  allowed the Bounds Court to preserve the "affirmative obligations"  element of the equal access cases, the rationale of which had largely  been undermined prior to Bounds, by linking it with Ex parte Hull, which  had not been undermined by later cases but which imposed no affirmative obligations.  In the process, Bounds forged a right with no basis in  precedent or constitutional text: a right to have the State "shoulder  affirmative obligations" in the form of law libraries or legal  assistance to ensure that prisoners can file meaningful lawsuits.  By  detaching Griffin's right to equal access and Ex parte Hull's right to  physical access from the reasoning on which each of these rights was  based, the Bounds Court created a virtually limitless right.  And though  the right was framed in terms of law libraries and legal assistance in  that case, the reasoning is much broader, and this Court should have  been prepared under the Bounds rationale to require the appointment of capable state-financed counsel for any inmate who wishes to file a  lawsuit.  See Bounds, supra, at 841 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (observing that "the logical destination of the Court's reasoning" in  Bounds is "lawyers appointed at the expense of the State"). See also  ante, at __.  We have not, however, extended Bounds to its logical  conclusion.  And though  we have not overruled Bounds, we have  undoubtedly repudiated its reasoning in our consistent rejection of the  proposition that the States must provide counsel beyond the trial and  first appeal as of right. See Ross, 417 U. S., at 612; Finley, 481 U.  S., at 555; Giarratano, 492 U. S., at 3-4 (plurality opinion).


63
In the end, I agree that the Constitution affords prisoners what  can be termed a right of access to the courts.  That right, rooted in  the Due Process Clause and the principle articulated in Ex parte Hull,  is a right not to be arbitrarily prevented from lodging a claimed  violation of a federal right in a federal court.  The State, however, is  not constitutionally required to finance or otherwise assist the  prisoner's efforts, either through law libraries or other legal  assistance. Whether to expend state resources to facilitate prisoner  lawsuits is a question of policy and one that the Constitution leaves to  the discretion of the States.


64
There is no basis in history or tradition for the proposition that the State's constitutional obligation is any broader. Although the  historical record is relatively thin, those who have explored the  development of state-sponsored legal assistance for prisoners agree  that, until very recently, law libraries in prisons were "nearly  nonexistent."  A. Flores, Werner's Manual for Prison Law Libraries 1 (2d  ed. 1990).  Prior to Bounds, prison library collections (to the extent  prisons had libraries) commonly reflected the correctional goals that a  State wished to advance, whether religious, educational, or  rehabilitative. Although some institutions may have begun to acquire a  minimal collection of legal materials in the early part of this century, law books generally were not included in prison libraries prior to the  1950's.  See W. Coyle, Libraries in Prisons 54-55 (1987). The exclusion  of law books was consistent with the recommendation of the American  Prison Association, which advised prison administrators nationwide to  omit federal and state law books from prison library collections.  See  American Prison Association, Objectives and Standards for Libraries in  Adult Prisons and Reformatories, in Library Manual  for Correctional Institutions 101, 106-107 (1950).  The rise of  the prison law library  and other legal assistance programs is a  recent phenomenon, and one  generated largely by the federal courts.  See Coyle, supra, at 54-55; B.  Vogel, Down for the Count: A Prison Library Handbook 87-89 (1995).  See  also Ihrig,  Providing Legal Access, in Libraries Inside: A Practical  Guide for Prison Librarians 195 (R. Rubin & D. Suvak eds. 1995)  (establishment of law libraries and legal service programs due to  "inmate victories in the courts within the last two decades").  Thus,  far from recognizing a long tradition of state-sponsored legal  assistance for prisoners, Bounds was in fact a major "disruption to traditional prison operation."  Vogel, supra, at  87.


65
The idea that prisoners have a legal right to the assistance that they were traditionally denied is also of recent vintage. The  traditional, pre-Bounds view of the law with regard to the State's  obligation to facilitate prisoner lawsuits by providing law libraries  and legal assistance was articulated in Hatfield v. Bailleaux, 290 F. 2d  632 (CA9), cert. denied, 368 U. S. 862 (1961):


66
"State authorities have no obligation under the federal Constitution to provide library facilities and an opportunity for their  use to enable an inmate to search for legal loopholes in the judgment  and sentence under which he is held, or to perform services which only a  lawyer is trained to perform.  All inmates are presumed to be confined  under valid judgments and sentences. If an inmate believes he has a  meritorious reason for attacking his, he must be given an opportunity to  do so.  But he has no due process right to spend his prison time or  utilize prison facilities in an effort to discover a ground for  overturning a presumptively valid judgment.


67
"Inmates have the constitutional right to waive counsel and act  as their own lawyers, but this does not mean that a non-lawyer must be  given the opportunity to acquire a legal education.  One question which  an inmate must decide in determining if he should represent himself is  whether in view of his own competency and general prison regulations he  can do so adequately.  He must make the decision in the light of the circumstances existing.  The state has no duty to alter the circumstances to conform with his decision."  290 F. 2d, at 640-641.


68
Consistent with the traditional view, the lower courts understood the Constitution only to guarantee prisoners a right to be  free from state interference in filing papers with the courts:


69
"[A]ccess to the courts means the opportunity to prepare, serve  and file whatever pleadings or other documents are necessary or  appropriate in order to commence or prosecute court proceedings  affecting one's personal liberty, or to assert and sustain a defense  therein, and to send and receive communications to and from judges,  courts and lawyers concerning such matters." Id., at 637.


70
See also Oaks v. Wainwright, 430 F. 2d 241, 242 (CA5 1970) (affirming dismissal of prisoner's complaint alleging denial of access  to library and legal materials on ground that prisoner had not alleged  "that he has in any way been denied access to the courts . . ., that he  has ever lost the right to commence, prosecute or appeal in any court,  or that he has been substantially delayed in obtaining a judicial  determination in any proceeding").  Thus, while courts held that a  prisoner is entitled to attack his sentence without state interference,  they also consistently held that "[p]rison regulations are not required to provide prisoners with the time, the correspondence privileges, the  materials or other facilities they desire for the special purpose of  trying to find some way of making attack  upon the presumptively valid  judgments against them."  Lee v. Tahash, 352 F. 2d 970, 973 (CA8 1965).  "If the purpose was not to hamper inmates in gaining reasonable access  to the courts with regard to their respective criminal matters, and if  the regulations and practices do not interfere with such reasonable access," the inquiry was at an end.  Hatfield, 290 F. 2d, at 640. That  access could have been facilitated without impairing effective prison  administration was considered "immaterial." Ibid.


71
Quite simply, there is no basis in constitutional text, pre-Bounds precedent, history, or tradition for the conclusion that the  constitutional right of access imposes affirmative obligations on the  States to finance and support prisoner litigation.

II.
A.

72
Even when compared to the federal judicial overreaching to which  we have now become accustomed, this is truly a remarkable case.  The  District Court's order vividly demonstrates the danger of continuing to  afford federal judges the virtually unbridled equitable power that we  have for too long sanctioned.  We have here yet another example of a  federal judge attempting to "direc[t] or manag[e] the reconstruction of  entire institutions and bureaucracies, with little regard for the  inherent limitations on [his] authority."  Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.  S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 14) (Thomas, J., concurring).  And we  will continue to see cases like this unless we take more serious steps  to curtail the use of equitable power by the federal courts.


73
Principles of federalism and separation of powers impose stringent limitations on the equitable power of federal courts. When  these principles are accorded their proper respect, Article III cannot  be understood to authorize the federal judiciary to take control of core  state institutions like prisons, schools, and hospitals, and assume  responsibility for making the difficult policy judgments that state  officials are both constitutionally entitled and uniquely qualified to  make.  See id., at ___-___ (slip op., at 19-22).  Broad remedial decrees  strip state administrators of their authority to set long-term goals for  the institutions they manage and of the flexibility necessary to make reasonable judgments on short notice under difficult circumstances.  See  Sandin v. Conner, 515 U. S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip op., at 10).  At the  state level, such decrees  override the "State's discretionary authority  over its own program and budgets and forc[e] state officials to  reallocate state resources and funds to the [district court's] plan at  the expense of other citizens, other government programs, and other   institutions not represented in court."  Jenkins, 515 U. S., at ___   (slip op., at 19) (Thomas, J., concurring).  The federal judiciary is ill-equipped to make these types of judgments, and  the Framers never  imagined that federal judges would displace state executive officials  and state legislatures in charting state policy.


74
Though we have sometimes closed our eyes to federal judicial overreaching, as in the context of school desegregation, see id, at  ___-___ (slip op., at 12-13), we have been vigilant in opposing sweeping  remedial decrees in the context of prison administration.  "It is  difficult to imagine an activity in which a State has a stronger  interest, or one that is more intricately bound up with state laws,  regulations, and procedures, than the administration of its prisons."  Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 491-492 (1973).  In this area,  perhaps more than any other, we have been faithful to the principles of   federalism and separation of powers that limit the Federal Judiciary's  exercise of its equitable powers in all instances.


75
Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S. 396 (1974), articulated the governing principles:


76
"Traditionally, federal courts have adopted a broad hands-off attitude toward problems of prison administration.  In part  this policy  is the product of various limitations on the scope of federal review of  conditions in state penal institutions.  More fundamentally, this  attitude springs from complementary perceptions about the nature of the  problems and the efficacy of judicial intervention.  Prison  administrators are responsible for maintaining internal order and  discipline, for securing their institutions against unauthorized access  or escape, and for rehabilitating, to the extent that human nature and  inadequate resources allow, the inmates placed in their custody.  The Herculean obstacles to effective discharge of these duties are too apparent to warrant explication.  Suffice it to say that the problems of  prisons in America are complex and intractable,  and, more to the point,  they are not readily susceptible of resolution by decree.  Most require  expertise, comprehensive planning, and the commitment of resources, all  of which are peculiarly within the province of the legislative and  executive  branches of government.  For all of those reasons, courts are  ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform.  Judicial recognition of that  fact reflects  no more than a healthy sense of realism.  Moreover, where state penal  institutions are involved, federal courts have a further reason for  deference to the appropriate prison authorities."  Id., at 404-405   (footnotes omitted).16


77
State prisons should be run by the state officials with the expertise and the primary authority for running such institutions. Absent the most "extraordinary circumstances," Jones v. North Carolina  Prisoners' Union, 433 U. S. 119, 137 (1977) (Burger, C. J., concurring),  federal courts should refrain from meddling in such affairs.  Prison  administrators have a difficult enough job without federal court  intervention.  An overbroad remedial decree can make an already daunting  task virtually impossible.17


78
I realize that judges, "no less than others in our society, have  a natural tendency to believe that their individual solutions to often  intractable problems are better and more workable than those of the  persons who are actually charged with and trained in the running of the  particular institution under examination."  Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S.  520, 562 (1979).  But judges occupy a unique and limited role, one that  does not allow them to substitute their views for those in the executive  and legislative branches of the various States, who have the constitutional authority and institutional expertise to make these uniquely nonjudicial decisions and who are ultimately accountable for  these decisions.  Though the temptation may be great, we must not  succumb.  The Constitution is not a license for federal judges to  further social policy goals that prison administrators, in their  discretion, have declined to advance.

B.

79
The District Court's opinion and order demonstrate little respect for the principles of federalism, separation of powers, and  judicial restraint that have traditionally governed federal judicial  power in this area.  In a striking arrogation of power, the District  Court sought to micromanage every aspect of Arizona's "court access  program" in all institutions statewide, dictating standard operating  procedures and subjecting the state system to ongoing federal  supervision.  A sweeping remedial order of this nature would be  inappropriate in any case.  That the violation sought to be remedied was  so minimal, to the extent there was any violation at all, makes this  case all the more alarming.


80
The District Court cited only one instance of a prison inmate having a case dismissed due to the State's alleged failure to provide  sufficient assistance, and one instance of another inmate who was unable  to file an action.  See 834 F. Supp. 1553, 1558, and nn. 37-38 (Ariz.  1992).  All of the other alleged "violations" found by the District  Court related not to court access, but to library facilities and legal  assistance. Many of the found violations were trivial, such as a missing pocket part to a small number of volumes in just a few institutions.  Id., at 1562. And though every facility in the Arizona system already  contained law libraries that greatly exceeded prisoner needs,18 the  District Court found the State to be in violation because some of its  prison libraries lacked Pacific Second Reporters.  Ibid.  The District  Court also struck down regulations that clearly pass muster under Turner  v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78 (1987), such as restrictions at some facilities  on "brows[ing] the shelves," 834 F. Supp., at 1555, the physical exclusion from the library of "lockdown" inmates, who are the most dangerous and disobedient prisoners in the prison population, id., at  1556, and the allowance of phone calls only for "legitimate pressing  legal issues," id., at 1564.


81
To remedy these and similar "violations," the District Court imposed a sweeping, indiscriminate, and system-wide decree.  The microscopically detailed order leaves no stone unturned.  It covers  everything from training in legal research to the ratio of typewriters  to prisoners in each facility.  It dictates the hours of operation for  all prison libraries statewide, without regard to inmate use, staffing,  or cost. It guarantees each prisoner a minimum two-hour visit to the  library per trip, and allows the prisoner, not prison officials, to  determine which reading room he will use.  The order tells ADOC the  types of forms it must use to take and respond to prisoner requests for  materials.  It requires all librarians to have an advanced degree in  library science, law, or paralegal studies.  If the State wishes to remove a prisoner from the law library for disciplinary reasons, the  order requires that the prisoner be provided written notice of the  reasons and factual basis for the decision within 48 hours of removal.  The order goes so far as to dictate permissible noise levels in law  library reading rooms and requires the State to "take all necessary  steps, and correct any structural or acoustical problems."  App. to Pet.  for Cert.  68a.


82
The order also creates a "legal assistance program," imposing rules for the selection and retention of prisoner legal assistants.  Id., at 69a. It requires the State to provide all inmates with a 30-40  hour video-taped legal research course, covering everything from habeas  corpus and claims under 42 U. S. C. Section(s) 1983 to torts,  immigration, and family law. Prisoner legal assistants are required to  have an additional 20 hours of live instruction.  Prisoners are also  entitled to a minimum of three 20-minute phone calls each week to an  attorney or legal organization, without regard to the purpose for the call; the order expressly requires Arizona to install extra phones to  accommodate the increased use.  Of course, legal supplies are covered  under the order, which even provides for "ko-rec-type" to correct  typographical errors.  A Special Master retains ongoing supervisory  power to ensure that the order is followed.


83
The District Court even usurped authority over the prison administrator's core responsibility: institutional security and discipline.  See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S., at 546 ("maintaining institutional security and preserving internal order and discipline" are  the central goals of prison administration). Apparently undeterred by  this Court's repeated admonitions that security concerns are to be  handled by prison administrators, see, e.g., ibid., the District Court  decreed that "ADOC prisoners in all . . . custody levels shall be  provided regular  and comparable visits to the law library."  App. to  Pet. for Cert. 61a (emphasis added).  Only if prison administrators can "documen[t]" an individual prisoner's "inability to use the law library  without creating a threat to safety or security" may a potentially  dangerous prisoner be kept out of the library, ibid., and even then the  decision must be reported to the Special Master.  And since, in the  District Court's view, "[a] prisoner cannot adequately use the law  library under restraint,  including handcuffs and shackles," id., at 67a,  the State is apparently powerless to take steps to ensure that inmates  known  to be violent do not injure other inmates or prison guards while  in the law library "researching" their claims.  This "one free bite" approach conflicts both with our caselaw, see Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S.  460, 474 (1983), and with basic common sense.   The District Court  apparently misunderstood that a prison is neither a law firm nor a legal  aid bureau.  Prisons are inherently dangerous institutions, and  decisions concerning safety, order, and discipline must be, and always  have been, left to the sound discretion of prison administrators.


84
Like the remedial decree in Jenkins, the District Court's order  suffers from flaws characteristic of overly broad remedial decrees.  First "the District Court retained jurisdiction over the implementation  and modification of the remedial decree, instead of terminating its  involvement after issuing its remedy." 515 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at  23) (Thomas, J., concurring).  Arizona correctional officials must  continually report to a Special Master on matters of internal prison  administration, and the District Court retained discretion to change the  rules of the game if, at some unspecified point in the future, it feels  that Arizona has not done enough to facilitate court access.  Thus, the  District Court has "inject[ed] the judiciary into the day-to-day  management of institutions and local policies-a function that lies  outside of  our Article III competence."  Ibid.  The District Court also  "failed to target its equitable remedies in this case specifically to  cure the harm suffered by the victims" of unconstitutional conduct.  Id., at __ (slip op., at 24).  We reaffirmed in Jenkins that "the nature  of the [equitable] remedy is to be determined by the nature and scope of  the constitutional violation."  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 16) (majority  opinion) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).  Yet, in this  case, when the District Court found the law library at a handful of  institutions to be deficient, it subjected the entire system to the  requirements of the decree and to ongoing federal supervision.  And once  it found that lockdown inmates experienced delays in receiving law books  in some institutions, the District Court required all facilities statewide to provide physical access to all inmates, regardless of custody level.  And again, when it found that some prisoners  in some  facilities were untrained in legal research, the District Court required  the State to provide all inmates in all institutions with a 30-40 hour  videotaped course in legal research.  The remedy far exceeded the scope  of any violation, and the District Court far exceeded the scope of its  authority.


85
The District Court's order cannot stand under any circumstances.  It is a stark example of what a district court should not do when it  finds that a state institution has violated the Constitution.  Systemwide relief is never appropriate in the absence of a systemwide  violation, and even then should be no broader and last no longer than  necessary to remedy the discrete constitutional violation.


86
djq  Justice Souter, with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join, concurring in part, dissenting in part, and concurring in the  judgment.


87
I agree with the Court on certain, fundamental points: The case  before us involves an injunction whose scope has not yet been justified  by the factual findings of the district court, ante, at 15-16, one that  was imposed through a "process that failed to give adequate  consideration to the views of state prison authorities," ante, at 18,  and that does not reflect the deference we accord to state prison  officials under Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78 (1987), ante, at 17.  Although I therefore concur in the judgment and in portions of the  Court's opinion, reservations about the Court's treatment of standing  doctrine and about certain points unnecessary to the decision lead me to write separately.

I.

88
The question accepted for review was a broadside challenge to the scope of the District Court's order of systemic or class-wide relief, issued in reliance on Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817 (1977), not  whether proof of actual injury is necessary to establish standing to  litigate a Bounds claim.  The parties' discussions of actual injury, in  their petition for certiorari, in their briefs, and during oral  argument, focused upon the ultimate finding of liability and the scope  of the injunction. Indeed, petitioner specifically stated that  "[a]lthough the lack of a showing of injury means that Respondents are  not entitled to any relief, the State does not contend that the  Respondents lacked standing to raise these claims in the first instance. Respondents clearly met the threshold of an actual case or controversy  pursuant to Article III of the United States Constitution.  They simply  failed to prove the existence of a constitutional violation, including  causation of injury, that would entitle them to relief."  Brief for  Petitioners 33, n. 23.19


89
While we are certainly free ourselves to raise an issue of standing as going to Article III jurisdiction, and must do so when we  would lack jurisdiction to deal with the merits, see Mount Healthy City  Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 278 (1977), there is no apparent  question that the standing of at least one of the class-action  plaintiffs suffices for our jurisdiction and no dispute that standing  doctrine does not address the principal issue in the case.  We may thus  adequately dispose of the basic issue simply by referring to the  evidentiary record.  That is what I would do, for my review of the cases  from the Courts of Appeals either treating or bearing  on the subject of  Bounds standing convinces me that there is enough reason for debate about its appropriate elements that we  should reach no final conclusions  about it.  That is especially  true since we have not had the "benefit of  briefing and argument informed by an appreciation of the potential  breadth of the ruling."  Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U. S. ___, ___ (1995)  (slip op., at 1-2) (Souter, J., dissenting).  Addressing issues of  standing may not amount to the significant breakdown in our process of  orderly adjudication represented by Missouri v. Jenkins, but the Court  does reach out to address a difficult conceptual question that is  unnecessary to resolution of this case, was never addressed by the  District Court or Court of Appeals, and divides what would otherwise  presumably have been a unanimous Court.


90
That said, I cannot say that I am convinced that the Court has  fallen into any error by invoking standing to deal with the District  Court's orders addressing claims by and on behalf of non-English  speakers and prisoners in lockdown.  While it is true that the demise of  these prisoners' Bounds claims could be expressed as a failure of proof  on the merits (and I would so express it), it would be equally correct  to see these plaintiffs as losing on standing.  "A determination even at  the end of trial that the court is not prepared to award any remedy that  would benefit the plaintiff[s] may be expressed as a conclusion that the plaintiff[s] lac[k] standing."  13 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper,  Federal Practice and Procedure Section(s) 3531.6, p. 478 (2d ed. 1984)  (Wright & Miller).


91
Although application of standing doctrine may for our purposes  dispose of the challenge to remedial orders insofar as they touch  non-English speakers and lockdown prisoners, standing principles cannot  do the same job in reviewing challenges to the orders aimed at providing  court access for the illiterate prisoners.  One class representative has  standing, as the Court concedes, and with the right to sue thus  established, standing doctrine has no further part to play in  considering the illiterate prisoners' claims.  More specifically, the  propriety of awarding class-wide relief (in this case, affecting the  entire prison system) does not require a demonstration that some  or all of the unnamed class could themselves satisfy the standing requirements  for named plaintiffs.


92
"[Unnamed plaintiffs] need not make any individual showing of standing [in order to obtain relief], because the standing issue focuses  on whether the plaintiff is properly before the court, not whether  represented parties or absent class members are properly before the  court.  Whether or not the named plaintiff who meets individual standing  requirements may assert  the rights of absent class members is neither a  standing issue nor an Article III case or controversy issue but depends  on meeting the prerequisites of Rule 23 governing class actions."  1 H.  Newberg & A. Conte, Newberg on Class Actions, Section(s) 2.07, pp. 2-40 to 2-41 (3d ed. 1992).


93
See also 7B Wright & Miller, supra, Section(s) 1785.1, at 141 ("As long as the representative parties have a direct and substantial  interest, they have standing; the question whether they may be allowed  to present claims on behalf of others . . . depends not on standing, but  on an assessment of typicality and adequacy of representation").  This  analysis is confirmed by our treatment of standing when the case of a  named class-action plaintiff protesting a durational residence  requirement becomes moot during litigation because the requirement  becomes satisfied; even then the question is not whether suit can  proceed on the standing of some unnamed members of the class, but  whether "the named representative [can continue] to `fairly and   adequately protect the interests of the class.'" Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.  S. 393, 403 (1975) (quoting Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23(a)).


94
Justice Scalia says that he is not applying a standing rule when  he concludes (as I also do) that systemic relief is inappropriate here.  Ante, at 16, n. 7,  I accept his assurance. But he also makes it clear,  by the same footnote, that he does not rest his conclusion (as I rest  mine) solely on the failure to prove that in every Arizona prison, or  even in many of them,  the State denied court access to illiterate  prisoners, a point on which I take it every Member of the Court agrees.  Instead, he explains that a failure to prove that more than two  illiterate prisoners suffered prejudice to nonfrivolous claims is (at  least in part) the reason for reversal.  Since he does not intend to be applying his standing rule in so saying, I assume he is applying a  class-action rule (requiring a denial of class-wide relief when trial  evidence does not show the existence of a class of injured claimants).  But that route is just as unnecessary and complicating as the route  through standing.  (Indeed, the distinction between standing and  class-action rules might be practically irrelevant in this case, however  important as precedent for other cases.)


95
While the propriety of the order of systemic relief for illiterate prisoners does not turn on the standing of class members, and  certainly need not turn on class-action rules, it clearly does turn on  the respondents' failure to prove that denials of access to illiterate  prisoners pervaded the State's prison system.  Leaving aside the  question whether that failure of proof might have been dealt with by  reconsidering the class certification, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc.  160 (1982); 7B Wright & Miller, supra, Section(s) 1785, at 128-136, the  state of the evidence simply left the District Court without an adequate  basis for the exercise of its equitable discretion in issuing an  order covering the entire system.


96
The injunction, for example, imposed detailed rules and requirements upon each of the State's prison libraries, including rules  about library hours, supervision of prisoners within the facilities,  request forms, educational and training requirements for librarians and  their staff members, prisoners' access to the stacks, and inventory.  Had the findings shown libraries in shambles throughout the prison  system, this degree of intrusion might have been reasonable.  But the  findings included the specific acknowledgement that "[g]enerally, the  facilities appear to have complete libraries."  834 F. Supp. 1553, 1568   (Ariz. 1992).  The District Court found only that certain of the  prison libraries did not allow inmates to browse the shelves, only that some of  the volumes in some of the libraries lacked pocket parts, only that  certain librarians at some of the libraries lacked law or library  science degrees, and only that some prison staff members have no  training in legal research.  Given that adequately stocked libraries go  far in satisfying the Bounds requirements, it was an abuse of discretion  for the District Court to aggregate discrete, small-bore problems in  individual prisons and to treat them as if each prevailed throughout the prison system, for the purpose of justifying a broad remedial order  covering virtually every aspect of each prison library.


97
Other elements of the injunction were simply unsupported by any  factual finding.  The District Court, for example, made no factual  findings about problems prisoners may have encountered with noise in any  library, let alone any findings that noise violations interfered with  prisoners' access to the courts.  Yet it imposed a requirement across  the board that the State correct all "structural or acoustical  problems."  App. to Pet. for Cert. 68a.  It is this overreaching of the  evidentiary record, not the application of standing or even class-action  rules, that calls for the judgment to be reversed.


98
Finally, even with regard to the portions of the injunction based upon much stronger evidence of a Bounds violation, I would remand  simply because the District Court failed to provide the State with an  ample opportunity to participate in the process of fashioning a remedy  and because it seems not to have considered the implications that Turner  holds for this case.  For example, while the District Court was correct  to conclude that prisoners who experience delays in receiving books and  receive only a limited number of books at the end of that delay have  been denied access to the courts, it is unlikely that a proper  application of Turner would have justified its decision to order  the  State to grant lockdown prisoners physical access to the stacks, given  the significance of the State's safety interest in maintaining the lockdown system and the existence of an alternative, an improved paging  system, acceptable to the respondents.  Brief for Respondents 39.

II.

99
Even if I were to reach the standing question, however, I would  not adopt the standard the Court has established.  In describing the  injury requirement for standing, we have spoken of it as essential to an  Article III case or controversy that "the dispute sought to be  adjudicated will be presented in an adversary context and in a form  historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution."  Flast v. Cohen,  392 U. S. 83, 101 (1968). We ask a plaintiff to prove "actual or  threatened injury" to ensure that "the legal questions presented to the  court will be resolved, not in the rarified atmosphere of a debating  society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action."  Valley Forge  Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and  State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982).


100
I do not disagree with the Court that in order to meet these standards (in a case that does not involve substantial systemic deprivation of access), a prisoner suing under Bounds must assert something more than an abstract desire to have an adequate library or  some other access mechanism.  Nevertheless, while I believe that a  prisoner must generally have some underlying claim or grievance for  which he seeks judicial relief, I cannot  endorse the standing  requirement the Court now imposes.


101
On the Court's view, a district court may be required to examine  the merits of each plaintiff's underlying claim in order to determine  whether he has standing to litigate a Bounds claim. Ante, at 8, n. 3.  The Court would require a determination that the claim is  "nonfrivolous," ante, at 8, in the legal sense that it states a claim  for relief that is at least arguable in law and in fact.  I, in  contrast, would go no further than to require that a prisoner have some  concrete grievance or gripe about the conditions of his confinement, the  validity of his conviction, or perhaps some other problem for which he  would seek legal redress, see Part III-B, infra (even though a claim  based on that grievance might well fail sooner or later in the judicial process).


102
There are three reasons supporting this as a sufficient standard. First, it is the existence of an underlying grievance, not its  ultimate legal merit, that gives a prisoner a concrete interest in the  litigation and will thus assure the serious and adversarial treatment of  the Bounds claim.  Second, Bounds recognized a right of access for those  who seek adjudication, not just for sure winners or likely winners or  possible winners.  See Bounds, 430 U. S., at 824, 825, 828 (describing  the constitutional right of access without limiting the right to prisoners with meritorious claims); see also ante, at 9 (describing the  right of access even before Bounds as covering "a grievance that the  inmate wished to present . . ." (citations omitted)).  Finally,  insistence on a "nonfrivolous claim" rather than a "concrete grievance"  as a standing requirement will do no more than guarantee a lot of  preliminary litigation over nothing. There is no prison system so  blessed as to lack prisoners with nonfrivolous complaints.  They will  always turn up, or be turned up, and one way or the other the Bounds  litigation will occur.


103
That last point may be, as the Court says, the answer to any suggestion that there need be no underlying claim requirement for a  Bounds claim of complete and systemic denial of all means of court  access.  But in view of the Courts of Appeals that have seen the issue  otherwise,20 I would certainly reserve that issue for the day it  might actually be addressed by the parties in a case before us.


104
In sum, I would go no further than to hold (in a case not involving substantial, systemic deprivation of access to court) that  Article III requirements will normally be satisfied if a prisoner  demonstrates that (1) he has a complaint or grievance, meritorious or  not,21 about the prison system or the validity of his conviction22  that he would raise if his library research (or advice, or judicial  review of a form complaint or other means of "access" chosen by the  State) were to indicate that he had an actionable claim; and (2) that  the access scheme provided by the prison is so inadequate that he cannot  research, consult about, file, or litigate the claim, as the case may  be.


105
While a more stringent standing requirement would, of course, serve to curb courts from interference with prison administration, that  legitimate object is adequately served by two rules of existing law.  Bounds itself makes it clear that the means of providing access is  subject to the State's own choice.  If, for example, a State wishes to  avoid judicial review of its  library standards and the adequacy of  library services, it can choose a means of access involving use of the  complaint-form procedure mentioned by the Court today.  Ante, at 8.  And  any judicial remedy, whatever the chosen means of court access, must  be consistent with the rule in Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78 (1987), that  prison restrictions are valid if reasonably related to valid penological  interests.  Turner's level of scrutiny surely serves to limit undue  intrusions and thus obviates the need for further protection.  In the  absence of evidence that the Turner framework does not adequately  channel the discretion  of federal courts, there would be no reason to  toughen standing doctrine to provide an additional, and perhaps  unnecessary, protection against this danger.


106
But instead of relying on these reasonable and existing safeguards against interference, the Court's resolution of this case  forces a district court to engage in extensive and, I believe, needless  enquiries into the underlying merit of prisoners' claims during the  initial and final stages of a trial, and renders properly certified  classes vulnerable to constant challenges throughout the course of  litigation. The risk is that district courts will simply conclude that  prisoner  class actions are unmanageable.  What, at the least, the Court  overlooks is that a class action lending itself to a systemwide order of relief consistent with Turner avoids the multiplicity of separate suits  and remedial orders that undermine the efficiency of a United States  District Court just as surely as it can exhaust the legal resources of a  much-sued state prison system.

III.
A.

107
There are, finally, two additional points on which I disagree with the Court.  First, I cannot concur in the suggestion that Bounds  should be overruled to the extent that it requires States choosing to  provide law libraries for court access to make them available for a  prisoner's use in the period between filing a complaint and its final  disposition. Ante, at 9-10.  Bounds stated the obvious reasons for  making libraries available for these purposes, 430 U. S., at 825-826,  and developments since Bounds have confirmed its reasoning.  With  respect to habeas claims, for example, the need for some form of  legal  assistance is even more obvious now than it was then, because the restrictions developed since Bounds have created a "substantial risk"  that prisoners proceeding without legal assistance will never be able to  obtain review of the merits of  their claims. See McFarland v. Scott,  512 U. S. ___ (1994) (discussing these developments).  Nor should  discouragement from the number of frivolous prison suits lead us to  doubt the practical justifiability of providing assistance to a pro se  prisoner during trial.  In the past few years alone, we have considered the petitions of several prisoners who represented themselves at trial  and on appeal, and who ultimately prevailed.  See, e.g., Farmer v.  Brennan, 511 U. S. ___ (1994); Helling v. McKinney, 509 U. S. 25 (1993);  Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S. 1  (1992).

B.

108
Second, I see no reason at this point to accept the Court's view  that the Bounds right of access is necessarily restricted to attacks on  sentences or challenges to conditions of confinement. See ante, at  10-11.  It is not clear to me that a  State may force a prisoner to  abandon all opportunities to vindicate rights outside these two  categories no matter how significant.  We have already held that  prisoners do not entirely forfeit certain fundamental rights, including  the right to marry, Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S., at 95; the right to  free  speech, Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 407 (1989); and the  right to free exercise of religion, see O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482  U. S. 342 (1987).  One can imagine others that would arguably entitle a prisoner to some limited right of access to court.  See, e.g., Lassiter  v. Department of Social Servs. of Durham City, 452 U. S. 18 (1981)  (parental rights); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371 (1971)  (divorce); cf. Wong  Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U. S. 33, 49-50 (1950)  (deportation).  This case does not require us to consider whether, as a  matter of constitutional principle, a prisoner's opportunities to  vindicate rights in these spheres may be foreclosed, and I would  not  address such issues here.

IV.

109
I therefore concur in Parts I and III of the Court's opinion, dissent from Part II, and concur in the judgment.


110
djq  Justice Stevens, dissenting.


111
The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States from depriving any  person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.  While  at least one 19th-century court characterized the prison inmate as a  mere "slave of the State," Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. 790, 796   (1871), in recent decades this Court has repeatedly held that the  convicted felon's loss of liberty is not total.  See Turner v. Safley,  482 U. S. 78, 84 (1987); e.g., Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319, 321 (1972).  "Prison walls do not . . . separat[e] . . . inmates from the protections of the Constitution," Turner, 482 U. S., at 84, and even convicted criminals retain some of the liberties enjoyed by all  who live outside  those walls in communities to which most prisoners will some day return.


112
Within the residuum of liberty retained by prisoners are freedoms identified in the First Amendment to the Constitution: freedom  to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, e.g.,  O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 348 (1987); Cruz, 405 U. S.,  at 321, freedom to communicate with the outside world, e.g., Thornburgh  v. Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 411-412 (1989), and the freedom to petition  their government for a redress of grievances, e.g., Johnson v. Avery,  393 U. S. 483, 485 (1969).  While the exercise of these freedoms may of  course be regulated and constrained by their custodians, they may not be obliterated either actively or passively.  Indeed, our cases make it  clear that the States must take certain affirmative steps to protect  some of the essential aspects of liberty that might not otherwise  survive in the controlled prison environment.


113
The "well-established" right of access to the courts, ante, at  6, is one of these aspects of liberty that States must affirmatively  protect. Where States provide for appellate review of criminal  convictions, for example, they have an affirmative duty to make  transcripts available to indigent prisoners free of charge.  Griffin v.  Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 19-20 (1956) (requiring States to waive  transcript fees for indigent inmates); see also Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S.  252, 257-258 (1959)  (requiring States to waive filing fees for indigent  prisoners).  It also protects an inmate's right to file complaints,  whether meritorious or not, see Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546 (1941) (affirming right to file habeas petitions even if prison officials deem  them meritless, in case in which petition at issue was meritless), and  an inmate's right to have access to fellow inmates who are able to  assist an inmate in preparing, "with reasonable adequacy," such  complaints.  Johnson, 393 U. S., at 489; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S.  539, 580 (1974).23  And for almost two decades, it has explicitly  included the right of prisoners to have access to "adequate law  libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law."  Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817, 828 (1977).  As the Court points out,  States are free to "experiment" with the types of legal assistance that  they provide to inmates, ante, at 7-as long as the experiment provides adequate access.


114
The constitutional violations alleged in this case are similar  to those that the District Court previously found in one of Arizona's  nine prisons.  See Gluth v. Kangas, 773 F. Supp. 1309 (Ariz. 1988),  aff'd, 951 F. 2d 1504 (CA9 1991).  The complaint in this case was filed  in 1990 by 22 prisoners on behalf of a class including all inmates in  the Arizona prison system.  The prisoners alleged that the State's  institutions provided inadequate access to legal materials or other assistance, App. 31-33, and that as a result, "[p]risoners are harmed by  the denial of meaningful access to the courts."  Id., at 32.  The  District Court agreed, concluding that the State had failed, throughout  its prison system, to provide adequate access to legal materials,  particularly for those in administrative segregation, or "lockdown," and  that the State had failed to provide adequate legal assistance to  illiterate and non-English speaking inmates.  After giving all the  parties an opportunity to participate in the process of drafting the  remedy, the court entered a detailed (and I agree excessively so, see  infra, at 6) order to correct the State's violations.


115
As I understand the record, the State has not argued that the right of effective access to the courts, as articulated in Bounds, should be limited in any way.  It has not challenged the standing of the  named plaintiffs to represent the class, nor has it questioned the  propriety of the District Court's order allowing the case to proceed as  a class action.  I am also unaware of any objection having been made in  the District Court  to the plaintiffs' constitutional standing in this  case, and the State appears to have conceded standing with respect to  most claims in the Court of Appeals.24  Yet the majority chooses to  address these issues unnecessarily and, in some instances, incorrectly.


116
For example, although injury-in-fact certainly is a jurisdictional issue into which we inquire absent objection from the  parties, even the majority finds on the record that at least two of the  plaintiffs had standing in this case, ante, at 11,25 which should be  sufficient to satisfy any constitutional concerns.26  Yet the Court  spends 10 pages disagreeing.


117
Even if we had reason to delve into standing requirements in this case, the Court's view of those requirements is excessively strict.  I think it perfectly clear that the prisoners had standing, even absent  the specific examples of failed complaints. There is a constitutional  right to effective access, and if a prisoner alleges that he personally  has been denied that right, he has standing to sue.27  One of our  first cases to address directly the right of access to the courts  illustrates this principle particularly well.  In Ex parte Hull,  we  reviewed the constitutionality of a state prison's rule that  impeded an inmate's access to the courts.  The rule authorized corrections officers  to intercept mail addressed to a court and  refer it to the legal  investigator for the parole board to determine whether there was  sufficient merit in the claim to justify its submission to a court.  Meritless claims were simply  not delivered. Petitioner Hull succeeded  in smuggling papers to his father, who in turn delivered them to this  Court.  Although we held that the smuggled petition had insufficient  merit even to require an answer from the State, 312 U. S., at 551, we  nevertheless held that the regulation was invalid for the simple  and  sufficient reason that "the state and its officers may not abridge or  impair petitioner's right to apply to a federal court for writ of habeas corpus."  Id., at 549.


118
At first glance, the novel approach adopted by the Court today  suggests that only those prisoners who have been refused the opportunity  to file claims later found to have arguable merit should be able to  challenge a rule as clearly unconstitutional as the one addressed in  Hull.  Perhaps the standard is somewhat lower than it appears in the  first instance; using Hull as an example, the Court suggests that even  facially meritless petitions can provide a sufficient basis for   standing.  See ante, at 7, n. 2.  Nonetheless, because prisoners  are  uniquely subject to the control of the State, and because  unconstitutional restrictions on the right of access to the  courts-whether through nearly absolute bars like that in Hull or  through  inadequate legal resources-frustrate the ability of prisoners to  identify, articulate, and present to courts injuries flowing from that control, I believe that any prisoner  who claims to be impeded by such  barriers has alleged constitutionally sufficient injury-in-fact.


119
My disagreement with the Court is not complete: I am persuaded-as respondents' counsel essentially has conceded-that the  relief ordered by the District Court was broader than necessary to  redress the constitutional violations identified in the District Court's  findings. I therefore agree that the case should be remanded.  I cannot  agree, however, with the Court's decision to use the case as an  opportunity to meander through the laws of standing and access to the  courts, expanding standing requirements here and limiting rights  there,28 when the most obvious concern in the case is with the simple  disjunct between the limited scope of the injuries articulated in the  District Court's findings and the remedy it ordered as a result.  Because most or all of petitioner's concerns regarding the order  could be addressed with a simple remand, I see no need to resolve the other  constitutional issues that the Court reaches out to address.


120
The Court is well aware that much of its discussion preceding Part III is unnecessary to the decision.  Reflecting on its view that  the District Court railroaded the State into accepting its order lock,  stock, and barrel, the Court concludes on the last page of its decision  that "[t]he State was entitled to far more than an opportunity for  rebuttal, and on that ground alone this order would have to be set  aside."  Ante, at 19.  To  the extent that the majority suggests that the  order in this case is flawed because of a breakdown in the process of  court-supervised negotiation that should generally precede systemic  relief, I agree with it.  I also agree that the failure in that process "alone" would justify a remand in this case.  I emphatically disagree,  however, with the Court's characterization of who is most to blame for  the objectionable character of the final order. Much of the blame for  its breadth, I propose, can be placed squarely in the lap of the State.


121
A fair evaluation of the procedures followed in this case must  begin with a reference to Gluth, the earlier case in which the same  District Judge found petitioners guilty of a systemic constitutional  violation in one facility.  In that case the District Court expressly  found that the state officials had demonstrated "a callous unwillingness  to face the issues" and had pursued "diversion[ary] tactics" that  "forced [the court] to take extraordinary measures."  Gluth, 773 F.  Supp., at 1312, 1314. Despite the Court's request that they propose an  appropriate remedy, the officials refused to do so.  It is apparent that these defense tactics played an important role in  the court's decision  to appoint a special master to assist in the fashioning of the remedy  that was ordered in Gluth.  Only after that order had been affirmed by  the Court of Appeals did respondents commence this action seeking to  obtain similar relief for the entire inmate population.


122
After a trial that lasted for 11 days over the course of two months, the District Court found that several of petitioners' policies  denied illiterate and non-English speaking prisoners meaningful access  to the courts.  Given the precedent established in Gluth, the express  approval of that plan by the Court of Appeals, and the District Court's  evaluation of the State's conclusions regarding the likelihood of  voluntary remedial schemes, particularly in view of the State's  unwillingness to play a constructive role in the remedy stage of  that  case, the District Court not unreasonably entered an order  appointing  the same special master and directing him to propose  a similar remedy in  this case.  Although the District Court instructed the parties to submit  specific objections to the remedial template derived from Gluth, see  App. to Pet. for Cert. 89a, nothing in the court's order prevented the  State from submitting its own proposals without waiving its right to  challenge the findings on the liability issues or its right to object to  any remedial proposals by either the master or the respondents.  The  District Court also told the parties that it would consider settlement  offers, and instructed the master to provide "such guidance and counsel  as either of the parties may request to effect such a settlement."  Id.,  at 95a.


123
In response to these invitations to participate in the remedial  process, the State filed only four half-hearted sets of written  objections over the course of the six months during which the special  master was evaluating the court's proposed order. See App. 218-221,  225-228, 231-238, and 239-240.  Although the master rejected about half  of these narrow objections, he accepted about an equal number, noting  that the State's limited formal participation had been "important" and  "very helpful." Proposed Order (Permanent Injunction) in No. CIV  90-0054 (D. Ariz.), p. iii.  After the master released his proposed  order, the State offered another round of objections.   See App. 243-250. Although the District Court informed the master that the objections  could be considered, they did not have to be; the court reasonably noted  that the State had been aware for six months about the potential scope  of the order, and that it could have mounted the same objections prior  to the deadline that the court had set at the beginning of the process.  Id., at 251-253.


124
One might have imagined that the State, faced with the potential  of this "inordinately-indeed, wildly-intrusive" remedial scheme, ante,  at 18, would have taken more care to protect its interests before the  District Court and the special master, particularly given the express  willingness of both to consider the State's objections.  Having failed  to zealously represent its interests in the District Court, the State's present complaints seem rather belated; the Court has generally been  less than solicitous to claims that have not been adequately pressed  below.  Cf., e.g., McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.  S. 467, 488-489 (1991);  compare ante, at 20, n. 8 (State made boilerplate reservation of rights  in each set of objections), with cf. Gray v. Netherland, 518 U. S. ___,  ___ (1996) (slip op., at 9-10) ("[I]t is not enough to make a general  appeal to a constitutional guarantee as broad as due process to present  the  `substance' of such a claim to a state court").


125
The State's lack of interest in representing its interests is clear not only from the sparse objections in the District Court, but  from proceedings both here and in the Court of Appeals.  In argument  before both courts, counsel for the prisoners have conceded that certain  aspects of the consent decree exceeded the necessary relief.  See, e.g.,  43 F. 3d 1261, 1271 (CA9 1994) (prisoners agree that typewriters are not required); Tr. of Oral Arg. 31 (provisions regarding noise in library  are unnecessary).  This flexibility further suggests that the State  could have sought relief from aspects of the plan through negotiation.  Indeed, at oral argument in the Ninth Circuit, the parties for both  sides suggested that they were willing to settle the case, and the court  deferred submission of the case for 30 days to enable a settlement.  "However, before the settlement process had even begun, [the State]  declined to mediate."  43 F. 3d, at 1265, n. 1.  Notably, this is the  only comment made by the appellate court regarding the process that led to the fashioning of the remedy in this case.


126
A fair reading of the record, therefore, reveals that the State  had more than six months within which it could have initiated settlement  discussions, presented more ambitious objections to the proposed decree  reflecting the concerns it has raised before this Court, or offered up  its own plan for the review of the plaintiffs and the special master. It  took none of these steps.  Instead, it settled for piecemeal and belated challenges to the scope of the proposed plan.


127
The Court implies that the District Court's decision to use the  decree entered in Gluth as the starting point for fashioning the relief  to be ordered was unfair to petitioners and should not be repeated in  comparable circumstances.  The browbeaten State, the Court suggests, was  "entitled to far more than an opportunity for rebuttal."  Ante, at 19. I  strongly disagree with this characterization of the process.  Whether  this Court now approves or disapproves of the contents of the Gluth  decree, the Court of Appeals had affirmed it in its entirety when this  case was tried, and it was surely appropriate for the District Court to  use it as a starting-point for its remedial task in this case.  Petitioners were represented by competent counsel who could have  advanced their own proposals for relief if they had thought it expedient to do so.  By going further than necessary  to correct the excesses of  the order, the Court's decision rewards the State for the uncooperative  posture it has assumed throughout the long period of litigating both  Gluth and this case.  See ante, at 8-11; Gluth, 773 F. Supp., at  1312-1316.  Although the State's approach has proven sound as a matter  of tactics, allowing it to prevail in a forum that is not as inhibited  by precedent as are other federal courts, the Court's  decision  undermines the authority and equitable powers of not only this District  Court, but District Courts throughout the Nation.  It is quite wrong, in my judgment, for this Court to suggest that the District Court denied  the State a fair opportunity to be heard, and entirely unnecessary for  it to dispose of the smorgasbord of constitutional issues that it consumes in Part II.


128
Accordingly, while I agree that a remand is appropriate, I cannot join the Court's opinion.



1
 Respondents contend that petitioners failed properly to present their "actual injury" argument to the Court of Appeals. Brief  for Respondents 25-26.  Our review of petitioners' briefs before that  court leads us to conclude otherwise, and in any event, as we shall  discuss, the point relates to standing, which is jurisdictional and not  subject to waiver.  See United States v. Hays, 515 U. S. ___, ___ (1995)  (slip op., at 5); FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 230-231 (1990).  Justice Souter recognizes the jurisdictional nature of this point, post,  at 2, which is difficult to reconcile with his view that we should not "reach out to address" it, post, at 3.


2
 Justice Stevens suggests that Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546 (1941), establishes that even a lost frivolous claim establishes standing to complain of a denial of access to courts, see post, at 5. As  an initial matter, that is quite impossible, since standing was neither  challenged nor discussed in that case, and we have repeatedly held that  the existence of unaddressed jurisdictional defects has no precedential  effect.  See, e.g., Federal Election Comm'n v. NRA Political Victory  Fund, 513 U. S. __, __ (1994) (slip op., at __); United States v. More,  3 Cranch 159, 172 (1805) (Marshall, C. J.) (statement at oral argument).  On the merits, however, it is simply not true that the prisoner's claim in Hull was frivolous.  We rejectedit because it had been procedurally  defaulted by, inter alia, failure to object at trial and failure to  include a transcript with the petition, 312 U. S., at 551.  If all  procedurally defaulted claims were frivolous, Rule 11 business would be  brisk indeed.  Justice Stevens' assertion that "we held that the  petition itself had insufficient merit even to require an answer from  the State," post, at 5, is misleading.  The Attorney General of Michigan  appeared in the case, and our opinion discussed the merits of the claim  at some length, see 312 U. S., at 549-551.  The posture of the case was such, however, that we treated the claim "as a motion for leave to file  a petition for writ of habeas corpus," id., at 550; after analyzing  petitioner's case, we found it "insufficient to compel an order  requiring the warden to answer," id., at 551 (emphasis added). That is  not remotely equivalent to finding that the underlying claim was  frivolous.


3
 Justice Souter believes that Bounds guarantees prison inmates the right to present frivolous claims-the determination of which  suffices to confer standing, he says, because it assumes that the  dispute "`will be presented in an adversary context and in a form  historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution,'" post, at 7,  quoting Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 101 (1968).  This would perhaps  have seemed like good law at the time of Flast, but our later opinions  have made it explicitly clear that Flast erred in assuming that  assurance of "serious and adversarial treatment" was the only value  protected by standing. See, e.g., United States v. Richardson, 418 U.  S. 166, 176-180 (1974); Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War,  418 U. S. 208, 220-223 (1974).  Flast failed to recognize that this doctrine has a separation-of-powers component, which keeps courts within  certain traditional bounds vis-a-vis the other branches, concrete  adverseness or not.  That is where the "actual injury" requirement comes  from.  Not everyone who can point to some "concrete" act and is  "adverse" can call in the courts to examine the propriety of executive action, but only someone who has been actually injured.  Depriving someone of an arguable (though not yet established) claim inflicts actual injury because it deprives him of something of value-arguable  claims are settled, bought and sold. Depriving someone of a frivolous  claim, on the other hand, deprives him of nothing at all, except perhaps  the punishment of Rule 11 sanctions.


4
 Justice Souter suggests that he would waive this actual-injury requirement in cases "involving substantial, systemic  deprivation of access to court"-that is, in cases involving "`a direct,  substantial and continuous . . . limit on legal materials,'" "total  denial of access to a library," or "`[a]n absolute deprivation of access  to all legal materials,'" post, at 9-10, and n. 2.  That view rests upon  the expansive understanding of Bounds that we have repudiated.  Unless prisoners have a free-standing right to libraries, a showing of the sort  Justice Souter describes would establish no relevant injury-in-fact,  i.e., injury-in-fact caused by the violation of legal right.  See Allen  v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 751 (1984). Denial of access to the courts  could not possibly cause the harm of inadequate libraries, but only the  harm of lost, rejected or impeded legal claims.
Of course Justice Souter's proposed exception is unlikely to be  of much real-world significance in any event.  Where the situation is so  extreme as to constitute "an absolute deprivation of access to all legal  materials," finding a prisoner with a claim affected by this extremity  will probably be easier than proving the extremity.


5
 The district court order in this case, by contrast, required ADOC to stock each library with, inter alia, the Arizona Digest, the Modern Federal Practice Digest, Corpus Juris Secundum and a  full set of the United States Code Annotated, and to provide a 30-40  hour videotaped legal research course covering "relevant tort and civil  law, including immigration and family issues."  834 F. Supp. 1553,  1561-1562 (Ariz. 1992); App. to Pet. for Cert. 69a, 71a.


6
 Justice Stevens concludes, in gross, that Bartholic's and Harris' injuries are "sufficient to satisfy any constitutional [standing] concerns," post, at 4-5.  But standing is not dispensed in  gross.  If the right to complain of one administrative deficiency  automatically conferred the right to complain of all administrative  deficiencies, any citizen aggrieved in one respect could bring the whole  structure of state administration before the courts for review.  That is  of course not the law.  As we have said, "[n]or does a plaintiff who has  been subject to injurious conduct of one kind possess by virtue of that  injury the necessary stake in litigating conduct of another kind, although similar, to which he has not been subject."  Blum v. Yaretsky,  457 U. S. 991, 999 (1982).  As even Justice Souter concedes, the  inability of respondents to produce any evidence of actual injury to  other than illiterate inmates (Bartholic and Harris) "dispose[s] of the  challenge to remedial orders insofar as they touch non-English speakers  and lockdown prisoners." Post, at 3.
Contrary to Justice Stevens' suggestion, see post, at 5, n. 4,  our holding that respondents lacked standing to complain of injuries to  non-English speakers and lockdown prisoners does not amount to "a  conclusion that the class was improper."  The standing determination is  quite separate from certification of the class.  Again, Blum proves the  point: in that case, we held that a class of "`all residents of skilled  nursing and health related nursing facilities in New York State who are  recipients of Medicaid benefits'" lacked standing to challenge transfers  to higher levels of care, even though they had standing to challenge discharges and transfers to lower levels; but we did not disturb the  class definition.  See 457 U. S., at 997, n. 11, 999-1002.


7
 Our holding regarding the inappropriateness of systemwide relief for illiterate inmates does not rest upon the application of  standing rules, but rather, like Justice Souter's conclusion, upon "the  respondents' failure to prove that denials of access to illiterate  prisoners pervaded the State's prison system," post, at 5.  In one  respect, however, Justice Souter's view of this issue differs from ours.  He believes that systemwide relief would have been appropriate "[h]ad  the findings shown libraries in shambles throughout the prison system,"  post, at 6.  That is consistent with his view, which we have rejected,  that lack of access to adequate library facilities qualifies as relevant injury-in-fact, see n. 4, supra.
Contrary to Justice Souter's assertion, post, at 5, the issue of  systemwide relief has nothing to do with the law governing class  actions.  Whether or not a class of plaintiffs with frustrated  nonfrivolous claims exists, and no matter how extensive this class may  be, unless it was established that violations with respect to that class  occurred in all institutions of Arizona's system, there was no basis for  a remedial decree imposed upon all those institutions.  However inadequate the library facilities may be as a theoretical matter, various prisons may have other means (active assistance from "jailhouse-lawyers," complaint forms, etc.) that suffice to prevent the  legal harm of denial of access to the courts.  Courts have no power to  presume and remediate harm that has not been established.


8
 Justice Stevens believes that the State of Arizona "is most to blame for the objectionable character of the final [injunctive] order," post, at 7, for two reasons: First, because of its lack of cooperation in prison litigation three to five years earlier before the  same judge, see Gluth v. Kangas, 773 F. Supp. 1309 (Ariz. 1988).  But  the rule that federal courts must "giv[e] the States the first  opportunity to correct errors made in the administration of their  prisons," Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 492 (1973), is not to be  set aside when a judge decides that a State was insufficiently  cooperative in a different, earlier case.  There was no indication of  obstructive tactics by the State in the present case, from which one  ought to have concluded that the State had learned its lesson.  Second,  Justice Stevens contends that the State failed vigorously to oppose  application of the Gluth methodology to the present litigation.  But  surely there was no reasonable doubt that the State objected to that methodology.  Justice Stevens demands from the State, we think, an unattainable degree of courage and foolishness in insisting that, having  been punished for its recalcitrance in the earlier case by the  imposition of the Gluth methodology, it antagonize the District Court  further by "zealously" insisting that that methodology, recently  vindicated on appeal, must be abandoned. It sufficed, we think, for the  State to submit for the record at every turn that "Defendants'  objections and suggestions for modifications shall not be deemed a  waiver of these Defendants' right to appeal prior rulings and orders of  this Court or appeal from the subsequent final Order setting forth the  injunctive relief regarding legal access issues," see, e.g., App. 221,  225, 231, 239, 243.


9
 We reaffirmed this principle almost two decades later, and just three years before Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817 (1977), in Ross  v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600 (1974), where we observed that Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), and "[s]ucceeding cases invalidated . . .  financial barriers to the appellate process, at the same time  reaffirming the traditional principle that a State is not obliged to  provide any appeal at all for criminal defendants." 417 U. S., at 606   (citing McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684 (1894)).  See also 417 U. S.,  at 611.


10
 This is what Justice Brennan came to call the "Griffin equality principle," United States v. MacCollom, 426 U. S. 317, 331   (1976) (dissenting opinion), and it provided the rationale for a string  of decisions that struck down a variety of state transcript and filing  fees as applied to indigent prisoners. Bounds cited a number of these  cases in support of the right to "adequate, effective and meaningful"  access to the courts.  See 430 U. S., at 822, and n. 8.  But none of the  transcript and fee cases on which Bounds relied were premised on a  substantive standard of court access.  Rather, like Griffin, these cases  were primarily concerned with invidious discrimination on the basis of wealth.  See, e.g., Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708, 709 (1961) ("[T]o  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"); Gardner v.  California, 393 U. S. 367, 370-371 (1969) ("[I]n the context of  California's habeas corpus procedure denial of a transcript to an  indigent marks the same invidious discrimination which we held  impermissible in . . . Griffin").


11
 There is some discussion of due process by the plurality in Griffin, see 351 U. S., at 17-18, and a passing reference to "fair  procedure" in Douglas, 372 U. S., at 357.  These unexplained references  to due process, made in the course of equal protection analyses, provide  an insufficient basis for concluding that the regulations challenged in  Griffin and Douglas independently violated the Due Process Clause.  And  attempts in subsequent cases to salvage a role for the Due Process  Clause in this context and to explain the difference between the equal protection and due process analyses in Griffin have, in my opinion, been  unpersuasive.  See Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387, 402-405 (1985);  Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U. S. 660, 665-667 (1983).  In any event, there  do not appear to have been five votes in Griffin in support of a holding  under the Due Process Clause; subsequent transcript and fee cases turned  primarily, if not exclusively, on equal protection grounds, see, e.g.,  Smith v. Bennett 365 U. S. 708, 714 (1961); and the Douglas Court, with its "obvious emphasis" on equal protection, 372 U. S., at 361 (Harlan,  J., dissenting), does not appear to have reached the due process  question, notwithstanding Justice Harlan's supposition to the contrary,  see id., at 360-361.
It is difficult to see how due process could be implicated in these cases, given our consistent reaffirmation that the States can  abolish criminal appeals altogether consistently with due process.  See,  e.g., Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S., at 611.  The fact that a State affords  some access "does not automatically mean that a State then acts  unfairly," and hence violates due process, by denying indigents  assistance "at every stage of the way."  Ibid.  Under our cases,  "[u]nfairness results only if indigents are singled out by the State and  denied meaningful access to the appellate system because of their  poverty," a question "more profitably considered under an equal  protection analysis."  Ibid.


12
 The absence of a prison law library or other state-provided legal assistance can hardly be said to deprive inmates  absolutely of an opportunity to bring their claims to the attention of a  federal court. Clarence Earl Gideon, perhaps the most celebrated pro se prisoner litigant of all time, was able to obtain review by this Court  even though he had no legal training and was incarcerated in a prison  that apparently did not provide prisoners with law books.  See Answer to  Respondent's Response to Pet. for Cert. in Gideon v. Wainwright, O. T.  1962, No. 155, p. 1 ("[T]he petitioner is not a [sic] attorney or versed  in law nor does not have the law books to copy down the decisions of  this Court. . . .  Nor would the petitioner be allowed to do so").  See  also ante, at 7 (citing cases of this Court in which prisoners secured a  writ of certiorari without legal citations or legal analysis in their  petitions).
Like anyone else seeking to bring suit without the assistance of  the State, prisoners can seek the advice of an attorney, whether pro  bono or paid, and can turn to family, friends, other inmates, or public  interest groups.  Inmates can also take advantage of the liberal  pleading rules for pro se litigants and the liberal rules governing  appointment of counsel.  Federal fee-shifting statutes and the promise  of a contingency fee should also provide sufficient incentive for  counsel to take meritorious cases.


13
 Our decisions in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973), and Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229   (1976), validated the position taken by Justice Harlan in his dissents  in Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), and Douglas v. California,  372 U. S. 353 (1963).  As Justice Harlan persuasively argued in Douglas,  facially neutral laws that disproportionately impact the poor "do not  deny equal protection to the less fortunate for one essential reason:  the Equal Protection Clause does not impose on the States `an  affirmative duty to lift the handicaps flowing from differences in  economic circumstances.'  To so construe it would be to read into the Constitution a philosophy of leveling that would be foreign to many of  our basic concepts of the proper relations between government and  society. The State may have a moral obligation to eliminate the evils of  poverty, but it is not required by the Equal Protection Clause to give  to some whatever others can afford."  Id., at 362 (Harlan, J.,  dissenting).  See also Griffin, 351 U. S., at 35-36 (Harlan, J.,  dissenting); id., at 29 (Burton, J., dissenting) ("The Constitution  requires the equal protection of the law, but it does not require the  States to provide equal financial means for all defendants to avail themselves of such laws").


14
 Although he concurred in the judgment in Griffin, Justice Frankfurter expressed similar concerns.  He emphasized that "the equal  protection of the laws [does not] deny a State the right to make  classifications in law when such classifications are rooted in reason,"  Griffin, 351 U. S., at 21, and that "a State need not equalize economic  conditions," id., at 23.  Justice Frankfurter acknowledged that  differences in wealth are "contingencies of life which are hardly within  the power, let alone the duty, of a State to correct or cushion."  Ibid.  He also expressed concern that if absolute equality were required, a  State would no longer be able to "protect itself so that frivolous  appeals are not subsidized and public moneys not needlessly spent."  Id., at 24. See also United States v. MacCollom, 426 U. S., at 330 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment) (the Constitution does not "require that an indigent be furnished every possible legal tool, no  matter how speculative its value, and no matter how devoid of assistance  it may be, merely because a person of unlimited means might choose to  waste his resources in a quest of that kind").


15
 The Court's rationale appears to have been motivated more by notions of federalism and the power of the federal courts than with  the rights of prisoners. Our citation of three nonhabeas cases which  held that a state court's determination on a matter of federal law is  not binding on the Supreme Court supports this conclusion.  See Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S., at 549, citing First Nat. Bank of Guthrie Center v.  Anderson, 269 U. S. 341, 346 (1926) (the power of the Supreme Court to  review independently state court determinations of claims "grounded on  the Constitution or a law of the United States" is "general, and is a necessary element of this Court's power to review judgments of state  courts in cases involving the application and enforcement of federal  laws"); Erie R. Co. v. Purdy, 185 U. S. 148, 152 (1902) ("`[T]he  question whether a right or privilege, claimed under the Constitution or  laws of the United States, was distinctly and sufficiently pleaded and  brought to the notice of a state court, is itself a Federal question, in  the decision of which this court, on writ of error, is not concluded by  the view taken by the highest court of the State'") (citation omitted); Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442, 447 (1900) (same).


16
 Martinez was overruled on other grounds in Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 413-414 (1989).  We have consistently reaffirmed  Martinez, however, in all respects relevant to this case, namely that  "the judiciary is `ill equipped' to deal with the difficult and delicate  problems of prison management" and that prison administrators are  entitled to "considerable deference."  490 U. S., at 407-408.  See also  Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 84-85 (1987) (relying on Martinez for  the principle that "`courts are ill equipped to deal with the  increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform'")   (citation omitted).


17
 The constitutional and practical concerns identified in Martinez have also resulted in a more deferential standard of review for  prisoner claims of constitutional violations.  In Turner v. Safley, we  held that a prison regulation is valid if it is "reasonably related to  legitimate penological interests," even when it "impinges on inmates'  constitutional rights."  482 U. S., at 89.  A deferential standard was  deemed necessary to keep the courts out of the day-to-day business of  prison administration, which "would seriously hamper [prison officials'] ability to anticipate security problems and to adopt innovative solutions to the intractable problems of prison administration." Ibid.  A more stringent standard of review "would also distort the decisionmaking process, for every administrative judgment would be subject to the possibility that some court somewhere would conclude that  it had a less restrictive way of solving the problem at hand.  Courts  inevitably would become the primary arbiters of what constitutes the  best solution to every administrative problem, thereby `unnecessarily  perpetuat[ing] the involvement of the federal courts in affairs of  prison administration.'"  Ibid. (quoting Martinez, 416 U. S., at 407).


18
 The Arizona prison system had already adopted a policy of statewide compliance with an injunction that the same District Judge in  this case imposed on a single institution in an earlier case.  In  compliance with that decree, which the District Court termed the "Muecke  list," 834 F. Supp., at 1561, every facility in the Arizona correctional  system had at least one library containing, at a minimum, the following  volumes: United States Code Annotated; Supreme Court Reporter, Federal  Reporter Second; Federal Supplement; Shepard's U. S. Citations;  Shepard's Federal Citations; Local Rules for the Federal District Court;  Modern Federal Practice Digests; Federal Practice Digest (Second); Arizona Code Annotated; Arizona Reports; Shepard's Arizona Citations;  Arizona Appeals Reports; Arizona Law of Evidence (Udall); ADC Policy  Manual; 108 Institutional Management Procedures; Federal Practice and  Procedure (Wright); Corpus Juris Secundum; and Arizona Digest.  Id., at  1561-1562.


19
 Moreover, the issue of actual injury, even as framed by the parties, received relatively short shrift; only small portions of  the parties' briefs addressed the issue, see Brief for Petitioners  30-33; Reply Brief for Petitioners 11-13; Brief for Respondents 25-30,  and a significant portion of that discussion concentrated upon whether  the issue should even be addressed by the Court, Reply Brief for  Petitioners 12-13; Brief for Respondents 25-27.


20
 See, e.g., Jenkins v. Lane, 977 F. 2d 266, 268-269 (CA7 1992) (waiving the requirement that a prisoner prove prejudice "where  the prisoner alleges a direct, substantial and continuous, rather than a  `minor and indirect,' limit on legal materials" on the ground that "a  prisoner without any access to materials cannot determine the pleading  requirements of his case, including the necessity of pleading  prejudice"); cf. Strickler v. Waters, 989 F. 2d 1375, 1385, n. 16 (CA4  1993) (acknowledging the possibility that injury may be presumed in some  situations, e.g., total denial of access to a library), cert. denied,  510 U. S. 949 (1993); Sowell v. Vose, 941 F. 2d 32, 35 (CA1 1991) (acknowledging that a prisoner may not need to prove prejudice when he  alleges "[a]n absolute deprivation of access to all legal materials"   (emphases in original)).  Dispensing with any underlying claim  requirement in such instances would be consistent with the rule of  equity dealing with threatened injury.  See, e.g., Farmer v. Brennan,  511 U. S. ___ (1994) (holding that a prisoner need not suffer physical  injury before obtaining relief because "`[o]ne does not have to await  the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief'" (quoting Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923));  Helling v. McKinney, 509 U. S. 25, 33 (1993) (observing that prisoners  may obtain relief "even though it was not alleged that the likely harm  would occur immediately and even though the possible [harm] might not  affect all of those [at risk]" (discussing Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S.  678 (1978)).  If the state denies prisoners all access to the courts, it  is hardly implausible for a prisoner to claim a protected stake in  opening some channel of access.


21
 See Harris v. Young, 718 F. 3d 620, 622 (CA4 1983) ("It is unfair to force an inmate to prove that he has a meritorious claim which  will require access until after he has had an opportunity to see just  what his rights are"); see also Magee v. Waters, 810 F. 2d 451, 452 (CA4  1987) (suggesting that a prisoner must identify the "specific problem he  wishe[s] to research"); cf. Vandelft v. Moses, 31 F. 3d 794, 798 (CA9  1994) (dismissing a Bounds claim in part because the prisoner "simply  failed to show that the restrictions on library access had any effect on  his access to the court relative to his personal restraint petition" (emphases in original)), cert. denied, 516 U. S. ___ (1995); Casteel v.  Pieschek, 3 F. 3d 1050, 1056 (CA7 1993) (it is enough if the prisoner  merely "identif[ies] the constitutional right the defendant allegedly  violated and the specific facts constituting the deprivation"); Chandler  v. Baird, 926 F. 2d 1057, 1063 (CA11 1991) ("there was no allegation in  the complaint or in plaintiff's deposition that he was contemplating a  challenge at that time [of the deprivation] to the conditions of his confinement"); Martin v. Tyson, 845 F. 2d 1451, 1456 (CA7) (dismissing a  claim in part because the prisoner "does not point to any claim that he  was unable to pursue"), cert. denied, 488 U. S. 863 (1988).


22
 I do not foreclose the possibility of certain other complaints, see text accompanying n. 2, supra, and Part III-B, infra.


23
 See also California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508, 510 (1972) ("The right of access to the courts  is indeed but one aspect of the right of petition.  See Johnson v.  Avery, 393 U. S. 483, 485; Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546, 549"); Bill  Johnson's Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB, 461 U. S. 731, 741 (1983) ("[T]he  right of access to the courts is an aspect of the First Amendment right  to petition the Government for redress of grievances"); id., at 743.
The right to claim a violation of a constitutional provision in  a manner that will be recognized by the courts is also embedded in those  rights recognized by the Constitution's text and our interpretations of  it.  Without the ability to access the courts and draw their attention  to constitutionally improper behavior, all of us-prisoners and free  citizens alike-would be deprived of the first-and often the only-"line  of defense" against constitutional violations.  Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.  S. 817, 828 (1977); see Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 579 (1974) (recognition of constitutional rights "would be diluted if inmates,  often `totally or functionally illiterate,'  were unable to articulate  their complaints to the courts"); cf. Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed.  Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971) (allowing plaintiff alleging  violation of Fourth Amendment rights access to the courts through a  cause of action directly under the Constitution).


24
 See Opening Brief for Appellant in No. 93-17169 (CA9), pp. 29-30; Reply Brief for Defendant/Appellants in No. 93-17169 (CA9), p.  14, n. 20.  The State directly questioned constitutional standing only  with respect to two narrow classes of claims: the standard for indigency   (a claim on which the State was successful below), and, in its reply  brief, photocopying.


25
 In all likelihood, the District Court's failure to articulate additional specific examples of missing claims was due more  to the fact that the State did not challenge the constitutional standing  of the prisoners in the District Court than to a lack of actual evidence  relating to such lost claims. Now that the District Court and prisoners  are on notice that standing is a matter of specific concern, it is free  on remand to investigate the record or other evidence that the parties  could make available regarding other claims that have been lost because of inadequate facilities.


26
 If named class plaintiffs have standing, the standing of the class members is satisfied by the requirements for class certification.  1 H. Newberg & A. Conte, Newberg on Class Actions, Section(s) 2.01, p. 2-3 (3rd ed. 1992); ante, at 3-5 (Souter, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part, and concurring in judgment).  Because the State did not challenge that certification, it is rather  late in the game to now give it the advantage of a conclusion that the  class was improper (even if it is-although illiterate inmates, it seems  to me, are not positioned much differently with respect to English  language legal materials than are non-English speaking prisoners).


27
 Although a prisoner would lose on the merits if he alleged that the deprivation of that right occurred because the State, for example, did not provide him with access to on-line computer databases,  he would also certainly have "standing" to make his claim. The Court's  argument to the contrary with respect to most of the prisoners in this  case, it seems to me, is not as much an explication of the principles of  standing, but the creation of a new rule requiring prisoners making  Bounds claims to demonstrate prejudice flowing from the lack of access.


28
 In addition to the Court's discussion of "standing," the opinion unnecessarily enters into discussion about at least two other aspects of the scope of the Bounds right.  First, the Court concludes  that the Bounds right does not extend to any claims beyond attacks on  sentences and conditions of confinement.  Ante, at 10.  But given its  subsequent finding that only two plaintiffs have met its newly conjured  rule of standing, see ante, at 11, its conclusion regarding the scope of  the right is purely dicta. Second, the Court argues that the Bounds  right does not extend to the right to "discover" grievances, or to  "litigate effectively" once in court.  Ante, at 9-10 (emphasis omitted).  This statement is also largely unnecessary given the Court's emphasis  in Part III on the need for the District Court both to tailor its remedy to the constitutional violations it has discovered and the requirement  that it remain respectful of the difficult job faced by state prison  administrators.
Moreover, I note that the State has not asked for these limitations on Bounds.  While I doubt that Arizona will object to its  unexpected windfall, its briefs in the District Court, Court of Appeals,  and this Court have argued that the District Court order simply went  farther than was necessary given the injuries identified in its own  opinion.  See Brief for Petitioners 13-16. By agreeing with that  proposition but nonetheless going on to extend unrequested relief, the  Court oversteps the scope of the debate presented in this case.  Whenever we take such a step, we venture unnecessarily onto dangerous  ground.


