406
Stevens, J., dissenting
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 352—as long as the experiment provides adequate access.
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 seg-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., at 579 (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).
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