Cite as: 518 U. S. 343 (1996)
Opinion of Souter, J.
vant in this case, however important as precedent for other cases.)
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. 23(c)(1); General Telephone Co. of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U. S. 147, 160 (1982); 7B Wright & Miller § 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.
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 acknowledgment 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,
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