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State Prisoners, Federal Courts, And Playing By The Rules: An Analysis Of The Aldisert Committee's Recommended Procedures For Handling Prisoner Civil Rights Cases, Gay Gellhorn

Seattle University Law Review

The Comment first will recapitulate the full range of procedural initiatives proposed by the Aldisert Committee for adoption as local court rules. Then it will analyze the Committee's recommendations relating to pleading forms and screening the complaints before service of process, the critical stage at which courts dispose of most prisoner complaints. Although concluding that important aspects of the recommended procedures are fundamentally inconsistent with federal statutes and rules, this Comment acknowledges the valid concerns generating the Committee's proposals, and then suggests alternative judicial actions responsive to the phenomenon of state prisoner civil rights com- plaints in federal courts.