Spoiler alert for those not in the know — in one of the best scenes in the Princess Bride (1987), one of the great movies of all time, the hero lies in a non-responsive state, apparently dead. He’s been tortured by one of the movie’s villains and left for dead. The hero’s friends discover him and take him to Miracle Max (played by Billy Crystal), the evil prince’s jaded former miracle man, to bring him back to life. They tell Miracle Max that the hero is dead, but he examines him and informs them that “it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead . . . Mostly dead, he’s slightly alive. All dead – with all dead, there’s only one thing you can usually do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change.” Miracle Max pumps some air into the hero and asks him, “hey, what’s so important? What’s you got here that’s worth living for?” The hero, still in a mostly dead state, responds in a respiratory mumble, “true love.” Miracle Max recognizes that true love is the most noble of all causes and performs a miracle. Eventually, the hero and Princess Bride live happily ever after, bonded by true love.
The takeaway from The Princess Bride is clear: true love can be the difference between mostly dead and all dead. That’s pretty much the same takeaway from Zab v. Zab, a Rhode Island Supreme Court Order issued last week. In Zab, the plaintiff was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and arson convictions. While serving the life sentence, he got married. According to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, the union was “brief,” and the plaintiff filed suit for divorce. The Family Court awarded him an absolute divorce, and then he filed a motion to expunge or seal the record of the marriage in Family Court, arguing that his divorce should be sealed as if it never had existed because he was civilly dead under the so-called Civil Death Statute, which treats prisoners serving life sentences as dead for most purposes. The Family Court denied the motion to expunge or seal the marriage, and the plaintiff appealed the denial to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
The Civil Death Statute, found at R.I. Gen. Laws 13-6-1, says that persons serving life sentences “with respect to all rights of property, to the bond of matrimony and to all civil rights and relations of any nature whatsoever, be deemed to be dead in all respects, as if his or her natural death had taken place at the time of conviction.” In a previous case, Gallop v. ACI, the Rhode Island Supreme Court interpreted the Civil Death Statute to mean that persons serving life sentences are prohibited from bringing civil actions in court, because they are treated as legally dead. Gallop v. ACI, 182 A.3d 1137, 1143 (R.I. 2018).
In the Zab case decided last week, relying on Gallop and the Civil Death Statute, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiff had no legal right to have the record of his marriage sealed because he was legally dead and did not have the right to bring a civil action in Family Court or an appeal in the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Since the plaintiff was already serving a life sentence at the time he entered the bonds of matrimony, the Rhode Island Supreme Court also observed that “we are hard-pressed to discern under what authority the parties were married in the first place.”
The Civil Death Statute does have an exception for marriages that exist before the imposition of the life sentence, stating that “the bond of matrimony shall not be dissolved . . . except on the entry of a lawfully obtained decree for divorce.” Given the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s rulings in Zab and Gallop, about the only thing that can legally survive a life sentence is a marriage that existed before the imposition of the life sentence. And what’s the only thing that can keep a marriage going when one person is locked up for the rest of his or her natural life? True Love.
The Princess Bride movie had it right, and is the logical underpinning of the reasoning in Zab. If you have true love, you’re (only) mostly dead. Without true love, you’re all dead. Of course, the Princess Bride isn’t the first time that a movie has presaged the outcome of a case. E.g., Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715, 727 n.2 (2006) (quoting Casablanca while interpreting the federal Clean Water Act).
The Zab case also brings up some interesting legal questions. In effect, Zab bases its reasoning on the Civil Death Statute to hold that persons serving life sentences cannot bring civil actions because the Civil Death Statute says that the person shall “be deemed to be dead in all respects, as if his or her natural death had taken place at the time of conviction.” But it is a long-standing rule that some civil claims survive death while others do not. Invasion of privacy, for example, is considered a personal tort and does not survive death. Clift v. Narragansett TV L.P., 688 A.2d 805, 814 (R.I. 1996). But lots of other civil actions survive death – both tort actions and contract actions – and can be brought by the decedent’s estate. So if the Civil Death Statute treats someone as legally dead, why couldn’t someone stand in shoes equivalent to an executor, and bring a claim that survives death on behalf of the life-sentence prisoner?
Turning to federal law, presumably the Civil Death Statute would not prohibit life prisoners from bringing civil actions under the federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. 1983, based on the Supremacy Clause in the federal constitution that favors federal law over conflicting state law. Notably, in a related proceeding involving Mr. Zab in federal court, the State of Rhode Island conceded that “the ‘plain language’ of R.I. Gen. Laws § 13-6-1 [the Civil Death Statute] cannot reasonably be interpreted as precluding inmates serving life sentences at the Adult Correctional Institutions from seeking post-conviction relief because they are ‘civilly” dead.'” Zab v. Rhode Island, No. 18-070 WES, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72875, at *5-6 (D.R.I. May 1, 2018).
Zab also states that “we [the Supreme Court] are hard-pressed to discern under what authority the parties were married in the first place” because the groom was serving a life sentence at the time of marriage. Zab was decided solely on the statutory ground of the Civil Death Statute. It’s an open question whether the Civil Death Statute would survive a constitutional challenge under the federal or Rhode Island constitutions. In Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2604 (2015), the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause, like the Due Process Clause, prohibits the unjustified infringement of the fundamental right to marry. Similar to the federal constitution, Article I, Section 2 of the Rhode Island Constitution has an equal protection clause. Generally, restrictions on fundamental rights must satisfy strict scrutiny. It would be interesting to see if the blanket restriction against marriage for persons serving life sentences would satisfy a legal challenge brought under strict scrutiny. If that legal challenge ever occurs, it would be a spirited oral argument, and the Clergyman in the Princess Bride will have said it best: “Marriage. What is Marriage? Marriage is what brings us together here today . . . and Love, true love, will follow you forever.”