Cite as: 519 U. S. 102 (1996)
Thomas, J., dissenting
(1930). Due process has never compelled an appeal where, as here, its rigors are satisfied by an adequate hearing. Those cases in which the Court has required States to alleviate financial obstacles to process beyond a hearing—though sometimes couched in due process terms—have been based on the equal protection proposition that if the State chooses to provide for appellate review, it " 'can no more discriminate on account of poverty than on account of religion, race, or color.' " Lewis v. Casey, supra, at 371 (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting Griffin v. Illinois, supra, at 17 (plurality opinion)) (footnote omitted). There seems, then, no place in the Due Process Clause—certainly as an original matter, and even as construed by this Court—for the constitutional "right" crafted by the majority today. I turn now to the other possible source: The Equal Protection Clause.
B
As I stated last Term in Lewis v. Casey, I do not think that the equal protection theory underlying the Griffin line of cases remains viable. See 518 U. S., at 373-378. There, I expressed serious reservations as to the continuing vitality of Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817 (1977) (requiring prison authorities to provide prisoners with adequate law libraries or legal assistance). As it did in Bounds, the Court today not only adopts the equal protection theory of Griffin v. Illinois—which was dubious ab initio and which has been undermined since—but extends it. Thus, much of what I said in Lewis v. Casey bears repeating here.
In Griffin, the State of Illinois required all criminal appellants whose claims on appeal required review of a trial transcript to obtain it themselves. The plurality thought that this "discriminate[d] against some convicted defendants on account of their poverty," 351 U. S., at 18 (plurality opinion). Justice Harlan, in dissent, perceived a troubling shift in this Court's equal protection jurisprudence. The Court, he noted, did not "dispute either the necessity for a bill of excep-
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