Cite as: 518 U. S. 343 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
regation, or "lockdown," and that the State had failed to provide adequate legal assistance to illiterate and non-English speaking inmates. After giving all the parties an opportunity to participate in the process of drafting the remedy, the court entered a detailed (and I agree excessively so, see infra, at 409) order to correct the State's violations.
As I understand the record, the State has not argued that the right of effective access to the courts, as articulated in Bounds, should be limited in any way. It has not challenged the standing of the named plaintiffs to represent the class, nor has it questioned the propriety of the District Court's order allowing the case to proceed as a class action. I am also unaware of any objection having been made in the District Court to the plaintiffs' constitutional standing in this case, and the State appears to have conceded standing with respect to most claims in the Court of Appeals.2 Yet the majority chooses to address these issues unnecessarily and, in some instances, incorrectly.
For example, although injury in fact certainly is a jurisdictional issue into which we inquire absent objection from the parties, even the majority finds on the record that at least two of the plaintiffs had standing in this case, ante, at 356,3
2 See Opening Brief for Appellant in No. 93-17169 (CA9), pp. 29-30; Reply Brief for Defendant/Appellants in No. 93-17169 (CA9), p. 14, n. 20. The State directly questioned constitutional standing only with respect to two narrow classes of claims: the standard for indigency (a claim on which the State was successful below) and, in its reply brief, photocopying.
3 In all likelihood, the District Court's failure to articulate additional specific examples of missing claims was due more to the fact that the State did not challenge the constitutional standing of the prisoners in the District Court than to a lack of actual evidence relating to such lost claims. Now that the District Court and prisoners are on notice that standing is a matter of specific concern, it is free on remand to investigate the record or other evidence that the parties could make available regarding other claims that have been lost because of inadequate facilities.
407
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