Document Type
Brief
Publication Date
9-27-2021
Abstract
Amici are academic experts on the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and prison grievance systems and legal scholars who teach and write on constitutional law, civil rights, and prison issues. This Court has asked the parties to address whether petitioner John Ramirez adequately exhausted his audible prayer claim under the PLRA. Amici aim to assist the Court in analyzing this question.<\p>
Amici have decades of experience interpreting, studying, and analyzing the PLRA and the grievance process. They understand how the PLRA is written and how it is applied. And, although amici seek the same result as the petitioner, they also share a strong interest in ensuring there is an effective procedure for future prisoner complaints.
Under the PLRA, incarcerated individuals must exhaust administrative remedies provided in a prison’s grievance system. While the PLRA does not mandate what should be included in a grievance system, this Court expects those systems to be informal and relatively simple. The text of the PLRA requires only that incarcerated plaintiffs exhaust available remedies. Administrative remedies are unavailable when they are so opaque that they are incapable of use and when prison administrators use gamesmanship to keep incarcerated people from taking advantage of the grievance process.<\p>
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) interpreted Ramirez’s grievance in a way that rendered its process unavailable. The contention that Ramirez did not request audible prayer when he asked for his spiritual advisor to “pray over” him is untenable. The TDCJ’s grievance rules emphasize concision and brevity and limit requested relief to two lines on a preset form. Rather than follow its own rules, the TDCJ imposed an unannounced hyper-specificity requirement on Ramirez’s request. The TDCJ also ignored the plain meaning of the term “pray over.” This treatment of Ramirez made the TDCJ process too opaque to be capable of use. Alternatively, its treatment of the complaint amounts to impermissible gamesmanship that rendered the process unavailable.
Recommended Citation
Schlanger, Margo, "Ramirez v. Collier: Brief of Scholars of the PLRA and Prison Grievance Systems as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner" (2021). Appellate Briefs. 85.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/briefs/85
Comments
Amicus: Prison Litigation Reform Act; Prison Grievance Systems; Armstrong, Andrea; Calavita, Kitty; Deitch, Michele; Dolovich, Sharon; Jenness, Valerie; Mushlin, Michael B.; Reiter, Keramet; Schlanger, Margo