Walters v. Kautzky

CARTER, Justice.

Ernest F. Walters, Christopher LeGear, and Montez Shortridge, inmates of the Iowa State Penitentiary, claim to be third-party beneficiaries of a contract between the Iowa Department of Corrections and the state public defender providing that the latter will provide limited legal assistance to prison inmates. They assert that their rights under the contract have been denied. They also claim a right to relief on the ground that the legal assistance provided to them fails to satisfy the constitutional mandate for access to the courts imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the…