Page 56 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

54
that paradigm beyond the arrest context in order to examine unconstitutional prison conditions .40
During the next 25 years, individual and systemic litigation was successfully brought to challenge a broad range of prison conditions,41 but criticisms of the effect on federal court dockets began to mount . State correctional officials, who were often the target of that litigation, argued vigorously that they were being micromanaged by federal courts and forced to litigate thousands of “frivolous” claims .42 Sympathetic to the position that these issues were better resolved at the state level, Republican politicians incorporated a proposal to stop frivolous prison litigation into their “Contract with America” in 1994 . Congress finally passed the PLRA, which specifically targeted Section 1983 prison conditions cases .
Addressing concerns about the large number of frivolous federal lawsuits filed by prisoners,43 the PLRA contained initial screening provisions that allow federal courts to dismiss civil actions filed by prisoners before requiring the state to respond .44 The “three strikes” provision also bars prisoners who have had three frivolous cases dismissed from filing in forma pauperis unless the prisoner is under imminent danger of serious physical injury .45
The PLRA exhaustion requirements have been among the most significant and effective deterrents to prison condition litigation .46 Although the Supreme Court had definitively rejected an argument that state administrative exhaustion should be required before litigation of federal constitutional claims could be brought under Section 1983, the PLRA legislatively reversed that holding for prisoners .47 After allowing the lower courts to debate the statutory language, the Supreme Court held that the PLRA exhaustion provisions applied to “all inmate suits about prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive force or some other wrong .”48 And in 2005, the full weight of PLRA “total exhaustion” was announced .49 Detained juveniles, who have been repeatedly raped and assaulted with the knowledge and assistance of guards, must now comply with exacting prison procedures
40 Cooper v. Pate, 378 u.S. 446 (1964); houghton v. Shafer, 392 u.S. 639 (1968) (holding resort to state administrative remedies was not necessary to entitle petitioner to relief under Section 1983).
41 See e.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 u.S 97 (1976) (deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious medical need states an Eighth Amendment violation that is cognizable under Section 1983); Farmer v. Brennan, 511 u.S. 825 (1994) (prison officials may be held liable under Eighth Amendment for denying humane conditions of confinement); Women Prisoners of the District of Columbia, et al. v. District of Columbia, 899 F. Supp. 659 (D.D.C. 1995).
42 A case widely described as a federal lawsuit over chunky peanut butter was touted as the archetypal example. Examination of the litigation record revealed that it raised serious due process issues of constitutional dimension. Jon O. Newman, Pro Se Prisoner Litigation: Looking for Needles in Haystacks, 62 brooklyn l. reV. 520 (1996).
43 In 1995, prisoners filed nearly 40,000 cases or almost one fifth of the federal court civil docket; plaintiffs prevailed in fewer than 15 percent of those cases. Margo Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 harV. l. reV. 1555, 1558, n. 3 & 4 (2003).
44 28 u.S.C. § 1915A.
45 28 u.S.C. § 1915(g); Coleman-Bey v. Tollefson, ___ u.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 1759 (2015).
46 42 u.S.C. § 1997e(a) provides: “No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.”
Editor’s Note: The Supreme Court’s decision on exhaustion in Ross v. Blake, No.15-339, 2016 WL 3128839 (U.S. June 16, 2016), came down as this publication was going to press.
47 Compare Patsy v. Board of Regents for the State of Florida, 457 u.S. 496 (1982) with 42 u.S.C. § 1997e(a).
48 Porter v. Nussle, 534 u.S. 516, 532 (2002).
49 Woodford v. Ngo, 548 u.S. 81 (2006). Although the Court held exhaustion to be an affirmative defense rather than a jurisdictional requirement that must be pled by the plaintiff prisoner, forms provided by pro se offices routinely ask for information about exhaustion.
Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice