Smith v. Bennett

The issue in these habeas corpus cases concerns the validity, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, of the requirement of Iowa law that necessitates the payment of statutory filing fees 1 by an indigent prisoner of the State before an application for a writ of habeas corpus or the allowance of an appeal in such proceedings will be docketed. As we noted in Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252, 256 (1959), “[t]he State's commendable frankness in [these] . . . case[s] has simplified the issues.” In its brief, the State conceded that “indigent convicted criminals are unable to…