American Notes

Should the poor be barred from seeking justice in the nation's highest court? No fair-minded American would support that idea, yet the U.S. Supreme Court last week handed down two rulings that will make it more difficult for impoverished litigants to petition that body.

The first decision involved John Robert Demos Jr., a convicted rapist serving a life term. Taking advantage of a rule that waived the $300 filing fee for paupers, Demos had sent 32 repetitive petitions to the court. The justices voted 6 to 3 to blacklist Demos, making future free appeals harder. In a second order, the court amended its rules to restrict "frivolous or malicious" petitions by the poor, who file more than 60% of the court's cases.

In a bitter dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall pointed out that there was no comparable rule against frivolous appeals by fee-paying litigants. Wrote Marshall: "This court once had a great tradition: 'All men and women are entitled to their day in court.' That guarantee has now been conditioned on monetary worth."