Lewis v. Casey

Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that Bounds v. Smith did not create an abstract, freestanding right for incarcerated people to access a law library or legal assistance.^[1][2]

Justice Scalia, writing for the court, stated: "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." Chief Justice Rehnquist, who authored the dissent in Bounds v. Smith as an associate justice, joined in the court's opinion in Lewis v. Casey.

• Text of Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996) is available from: Cornell Findlaw Justia

This article incorporates written opinion of a United States federal court. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the text is in the public domain.