Perhaps it's no surprise that newly-retired Judge Richard Posner—being Richard Posner—would not take the easy route.

The “judicial provocateur” abruptly quit the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in September, telling The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin “I was not getting along with the other judges because I was (and am) very concerned about how the court treats pro se litigants, who I believe deserve a better shake.”

It wasn't just talk. He's now penned a powerful brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit defending a pro se litigant whose case was curtly dismissed.

“The complexity of modern civil litigation makes it particularly challenging for non-lawyers to understand pleading requirements and other procedural rules,” Posner wrote, telling the court what it already knows but too easily forgets. “Even with the complexity, a pro se litigant must still be afforded the due process of full evaluation by the court.”

To his credit, Posner did not choose the most obviously sympathetic client to make a stand.

In many ways, it would have been easier for him to defend a prisoner (and indeed, prisoners make up the bulk of pro se complaints)—maybe someone who was denied clearly needed medical care and suffered a terrible consequence as a result. Complaints like that are commonplace.

Instead, Posner went to bat for a client who sounds like the guy you'd dread sitting next to on a cross-country flight.

His name is William Bond, and he has a long and complicated history as a litigant. As a juvenile, he spent more than 30 days in a mental health facility, according to his complaint. He said his lawyer, Gerald Messerman, wrote him a letter stating that his juvenile record had been expunged—but it actually wasn't, and that got him in “very big trouble” for owning a gun in Maryland. (The case was later dismissed after a psychiatrist testified that Bond was mentally competent to possess a firearm.)

Bond sued Messerman for malpractice. He also sued the mental health facility for unauthorized release of his medical records.

Then there was a contentious custody dispute where his fictional manuscript, “Self-Portrait of a Patricide” was alleged stolen, used against him, and became part of the public record without his permission.

That prompted Bond to file a federal copyright suit—which he lost, and was ordered to pay $181,000 in attorney fees. He then filed three copyright suits in Maryland state court between 2003 and 2006. Two were dismissed, and one settled. Beginning in 2007, he filed three more pro se actions in federal court in an “effort to gain justice in the copyright case.”

He got nowhere.

He then unsuccessfully sued the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office and The Washington Post in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

As Bond put it in his second amended complaint, “Plaintiff has been involved in significant Maryland federal court litigation, both through counsel and pro se, since 2001. Plaintiff has lost motions and cases in ways that not only seemed unfair, but unconstitutional.”

I have no idea if his complaints are valid—but if I was choosing a poster child for pro se litigants who have been wronged, Bond would not be it.

To me, that makes Posner's decision to defend him more laudable. Because the principle remains: Courts can't cut corners. They have to consider the merits of each case, even the ones that don't seem obviously sympathetic.

Frustrated with the court system and what he saw as judicial bias and other improprieties, Bond turned to public protests and a series of newspaper advertisements centered on the slogan: “Is the 'White Guerrilla Family' running the Maryland federal court?” (No, I don't know what that means.)

The point, Posner stresses, is that this First Amendment activity drew improper scrutiny from law enforcement.

Bond's first complaint was all over the map, but when he sought to amend it with a bulked-up and revised second complaint, the court was not interested in considering his allegations.  But Posner argues it should have been.

“A court cannot simply deny a pro se litigant's attempt to cure defects in his complaint, without providing an explanation of why the proposed amended complaint allegedly falls short,” Posner wrote. “Whether the district court realized or not, the second amended complaint added specific allegations about how the actions of the government officials chilled his speech and adversely affected his ability to conduct a rigorous protest of what he sees as judicial corruption. Specifically, Bond's additional allegations demonstrate an objectively reasonable chilling of his speech and his planned protest.”

He added, “Bond should be given the opportunity to litigate the merits of his claim.”

 

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