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60 Ohio St. L.J. 557 (1999)
A Right of Access to Court under the Petition Clause of the First Amendment: Defining the Right

handle is hein.journals/ohslj60 and id is 571 raw text is: A Right of Access to Court Under the Petition Clause of the First Amendment: Defining the Right CAROL RICE ANDREWS* This Article explores the use of the Petition Clause as a vehicle for gaining access to courts. Professor Andrews reviews the English origins of the right to petition, the formation of the American version of the right, and Supreme Court decisions addressing court access generally and the right to petition in particular, all with a view to determining whether the right to petition properly extends to courts. She concludes that a right of access to the courts does exist via the Petition Clause. However, she argues that this right is limited and 'protects a person's right only to file winning claims within the court's jurisdiction. Professor Andrews concludes by proposing protections borrowed from free speech doctrine in order to ensure and to effectively broaden this right of court access. This nation has long viewed a person's ability to gain access to court as a fundamental element of our democracy. Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison1 described the ability to obtain civil redress as the very essence of civil liberty.2 Yet, until recently, the Supreme Court has granted little constitutional protection to court access in civil cases. Certain groups, such as prisoners, enjoy a constitutional right of court access, but the average person in an ordinary civil case has not had such a right. A universal right of court access is emerging, though, and it is coming from an unlikely source, the Petition Clause of the First Amendment. This Article looks at this new right of court access. The right to petition the government is the last guarantee of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.3 Relatively * Associate Professor of Law, University of Alabama School of Law. I am grateful for the generous financial support of the University of Alabama School of Law Foundation and, in particular, the William H. Sadler fund. I thank my colleagues at the University of Alabama School of Law for their assistance and comments in our colloquia. I am indebted to Dean Ken Randall, Bryan Fair, Jerry Hoffman, Cathaleen Roach, Norman Stein, and especially Wythe Holt for their thoughtful critiques of earlier drafts of this Article. I also appreciate the comments and suggestions made by the participants of the 1998 scholarship workshop of the Southeastem Association of American Law Schools. Finally, I thank my students for their support and research assistance. 15 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). 2 Id. at 163. 3 The First Amendment states:

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