Rinaldi v. Yeager/Opinion of the Court

The appellant, Joseph A. Rinaldi, was convicted of a criminal offense in a trial court of Essex County, New Jersey, and sentenced to prison for a term of give to 10 years. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, allowed him leave to appeal in forma pauperis and granted his petition for a transcript of the trial court proceedings, finding that the transcript was needed for the appeal and that Rinaldi was unable to pay for it. Rinaldi's appeal was unsuccessful, and he is now an inmate in the New Jersey State Prison.

As compensation for his work in prison, Rinaldi earns 20 cents a day, five days a week. Since late 1963, however, every day's pay has been withheld from him by prison officials and sent to the Treasurer of Essex County, in order to reimburse the county for the $215 cost of the transcript it provided for his appeal. This has been done in accordance with a statute enacted by New Jersey in 1956, shortly after this Court's decision in Griffin v. People of State of Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891. Rinaldi brought this suit to enjoin enforcement of the statute on the ground that it is unconstitutional. A three-judge Federal District Court denied relief, 238 F.Supp. 960, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 382 U.S. 1007, 86 S.Ct. 627, 15 L.Ed.2d 524.

The statute in question is N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2A:152-18 (1964 Cum.Supp.), and it provides as follows:

'The county treasurer shall file a notice of (the payment by     the county) and the amount thereof with the institution in      which said person, upon whose application the transcript of      the record was prepared, is confined, and, to the extent of      the expense incurred, the county treasurer shall be      reimbursed from any institutional earnings of such person, in      the event that the application for relief is denied by *  *  *      an appellate court.'

Rinaldi attacked the constitutionality of this statute on the basis of our decisions defining the duty of a State, under the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause, not to limit the opportunity of an appeal in a criminal case because of the appellant's poverty. Griffin v. People of State of Illinois, supra; Burns v. State of Ohio, 360 U.S. 252, 79 S.Ct. 1164, 3 L.Ed.2d 1209; Draper v. State of Washington, 372 U.S. 487, 83 S.Ct. 774, 9 L.Ed.2d 899; cf. Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.S. 708, 81 S.Ct. 895, 6 L.Ed.2d 39; Lane v. Brown, 372 U.S. 477, 83 C.Ct. 768, 9 L.Ed.2d 892. A logical extension of these decisions, the appellant contends, would prohibit a State from discouraging an indigent's freedom to appeal by saddling him with the obligation of paying for the cost of a transcript in the event his appeal is unsuccessful. We do not reach this contention, however, because we find the statute constitutionally deficient upon a different ground.

The New Jersey law does not impose this financial burden upon all who have been convicted in its courts and whose appeals have been unsuccessful. It requires no repayment at all from a man who has received a suspended sentence or been placed on probation, regardless of how high his subsequent earnings may be. It requires no repayment at all from an unsuccessful appellant who has been sentenced only to pay a fine. Instead, the law fastens the duty of repayment only upon a single class of unsuccessful appellants those who are confined in institutions. We find that the discriminatory classification imposed by this law violates the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause.

The Equal Protection Clause requires more of a state law than nondiscriminatory application within the class it establishes. McLaughlin v. State of Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 189-190, 85 S.Ct. 283, 286-287, 13 L.Ed.2d 222. It also imposes a requirement of some rationality in the nature of the class singled out. To be sure, the constitutional demand is not a demand that a statute necessarily apply equally to all persons. 'The Constitution does not require things which are different in fact * *  * to be treated in law as though they were the same.' Tigner v. State of Texas, 310 U.S. 141, 147, 60 S.Ct. 879, 882, 84 L.Ed. 1124. Hence, legislation may impose special burdens upon defined classes in order to achieve permissible ends. But the Equal Protection Clause does require that, in defining a class subject to legislation, the distinctions that are drawn have 'some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made.' Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 111, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620; Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 93, 85 S.Ct. 775, 778, 13 L.Ed.2d 675; Louisville Gas Co. v. Coleman, 277 U.S. 32, 37, 48 S.Ct. 423, 425, 72 L.Ed. 770; Royster Guano Co. v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415, 40 S.Ct. 560, 561 562, 64 L.Ed. 989.

We have been referred to no record of legislative history that might disclose with precision what this law was designed to achieve, but the statute itself bears the heading 'Reimbursement.' We may assume that a legislature could validly provide for replenishing a county treasury from the pockets of those who have directly benefited from county expenditures. To fasten a financial burden only upon those unsuccessful appellants who are confined in state institutions, however, is to make an invidious discrimination. Those appellants who have been sentenced only to pay fines have been accorded the same benefit by the county-a transcript used in an unsuccessful appeal, and all that distinguishes them from their institutionalized counterparts is the nature of the penalty attached to the offense committed. There is no defensible interest served by focusing on that distinction as a classifying feature in a reimbursement statute, since it bears no relationship whatever to the purpose of the repayment provision. Likewise, an appellant subject only to a suspended sentence or to probation is likely to differ from an inmate only in the extent of his criminal record. That, too, is a trait unrelated to the fiscal objective of the statute. Finally, the classification established by the statute cannot be justified on the ground of administrative convenience. Any supposed administrative inconvenience would be minimal, since repayment could easily be made a condition of probation or parole, and those punished only by fines could be reached through the ordinary processes of garnishment in the event of default.

Apart from its fiscal objective, the only other purpose of this law advanced by the appellees is the deterrence of frivolous appeals. Assuming a law enacted to perform that function to be otherwise valid, the present statutory classification is no less vulnerable under the Equal Protection Clause when viewed in relation to that function. By imposing a financial obligation only upon inmates of institutions, the statute inevitably burdens many whose appeals, though unsuccessful, were not frivolous, and leaves untouched many whose appeals may have been frivolous indeed.

This Court has never held that the States are required to establish avenues of appellate review, but it is now fundamental that, once established, these avenues must be kept free of unreasoned distinctions that can only impede open and equal access to the courts. Griffin v. People of State of Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891; Douglas v. People of State of California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811; Lane v. Brown, 372 U.S. 477, 83 S.Ct. 768, 9 L.Ed.2d 892; Draper v. State of Washington, 372 U.S. 487, 83 S.Ct. 774, 9 L.Ed.2d 899. We may assume that a State can validly provide for recoupment of the cost of appeals from those who later become financially able to pay. But any such provision must, under the Equal Protection Clause, be applied with an even hand.

The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, dissenting.