Cite as 310 F.3d 1153 (9th Cir. 2002)
Nevertheless, it is evident that the detainees are being held in a secure facility in an isolated area of the world, on a United States Naval Base in a foreign country, to which United States citizens are severely restricted from traveling. The detainees are not able to meet with lawyers, and have been denied access to file petitions in United States courts on their own behalf. As stated by the district court, and conceded by the Government at argument, “from a practical point of view the detainees cannot be said to have unimpeded or free access to court.” Coalition of Clergy, 189 F.Supp.2d at 1042. We need not delineate the contours of the access requirement in these circumstances, however, in light of the Coalition's lack of a relationship with the detainees.
- ii. Significant relationship with and true dedication to the detainees.
Turning to the second prong of Whitmore–Massie, we examine whether the members of the Coalition have some significant relationship with, and are truly dedicated to the best interests of, the detainees. In Whitmore, the Supreme Court addressed the limitations on third-party “next friend” standing, and explained that “[h]owever friendly” and “sympathetic” a petition may be, and however concerned the petitioner is that “unconstitutional laws [are being] enforced,” a petitioner without a significant relationship does not suffer a sufficient grievance for standing purposes. Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 166, 110 S.Ct. 1717. Otherwise, “however worthy and high minded the motives of ‘next friends’ may be, they inevitably run the risk of making the actual defendant a pawn to be manipulated on a chessboard larger than his own case.” Lenhard v. Wolff, 443 U.S. 1306, 1312, 100 S.Ct. 3, 61 L.Ed.2d 885 (1979) (Rehnquist, Circuit Justice). As the Whitmore Court explained:
These limitations on the “next friend” doctrine are driven by the recognition that it was not intended that the writ of habeas corpus should be availed of, as matter of course, by intruders or uninvited meddlers, styling themselves next friends. Indeed, if there were no restriction on “next friend” standing in federal courts, the litigant asserting only a generalized interest in constitutional governance could circumvent the jurisdictional limits of Art. III simply by assuming the mantle of “next friend.”
Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 164, 110 S.Ct. 1717 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
The Coalition argues that the Supreme Court in Whitmore did not impose the requirement of a “significant relationship” between the “next friend” and the detainee, but only noted that the cases it had surveyed suggested as much. In its view, the “significant relationship” requirement is the Ninth Circuit’s own erroneous gloss on Whitmore, which need not be followed.[1] All that is necessary, according to the Coalition, is: (1) an adequate explanation for the reason the real party in interest cannot appear on its own behalf; and (2) the true dedication by the next friend to the best interests of the detainee. The “significant relationship” criterion is no more than an additional consideration in determining whether a petitioner is a suitable next friend. See, e.g., United States v. Ken Int’l. Co., 897 F.Supp. 462, 465 (D.Nev.l995) (stating the two requirements, and then noting: “It is also sug-
- ↑ Even if the Coalition were correct, we are constrained to adhere to our circuit’s prior precedent, and the appropriate mechanism to revisit this framework would be through the en banc process. United States v. Ramirez-Cortez, 213 F.3d 1149, 1156 (9th Cir.2000). However, as explained below, Massie’s restatement of the Whitmore standard is not merely a gloss, but flows directly from the Court’s rationale.
