Part 2: case summaries by major topic.

ACCESS TO COURT U.S. Appeals Court Green v. Young, 454 F.3d 405 (4th Cir. 2006). PLRA- Prison The district court dismissed on its merits a Litigation Reform prisoner's civil rights suit that alleged Act various state prison officials were EXHAUSTION deliberately indifferent to his serious medical IN FORMA PAUPERIS needs. The prisoner appealed and moved to proceed without prepayment of fees. The appeals court held that routine dismissal under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) for failure to exhaust the administrative remedies does not count as a "strike" for the purpose of the Three-Strike Rule limiting in forma pauperis filings. The court cited the PLRA provision prohibiting a prisoner who has filed three previous suits that were dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or for failure to state a claim, from proceeding in forma pauperis in subsequent suits. (Virginia) U.S. District Court Nelson v. Warden of C.F.C.F., 461 F.Supp.2d 316 PLRA- Prison (E.D.Pa. 2006). A state prisoner brought a Litigation Reform [section] 1983 action against warden, Act corrections officers, and others, challenging EXHAUSTION his medical quarantine. The corrections officers moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the motion, finding that the prisoner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, so that his suit was barred under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Although the prisoner received an inmate handbook explaining the rules and procedures for filing an administrative grievance, he failed to file a grievance challenging the medical quarantine. (Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) U.S. District Court Baylis v. Taylor, 475 F.Supp.2d484 (D.Del. PLRA- Prison 2007). An inmate brought a [section] 1983 Litigation Reform action against various defendants, alleging Act deliberate indifference to his serious medical EXHAUSTION needs. The defendants moved for dismissal. The district court granted the motion in part and denied in part. The court held that the inmate's administrative remedies with respect to his claim that prison personnel were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs were presumed to have been exhausted, for the purposes of the Prison Litigation Reform Act's requirement that administrative remedies be exhausted before a [section] 1983 action could be brought, since no further remedies were available to the inmate. (Delaware Correctional Center) U.S. Appeals Court Freeman v. Watkins, 479 F.3d 1257 (10th Cir. PLRA- Prison 2007). A state prisoner brought a pro se civil Litigation Reform rights complaint attacking various prison Act conditions as well as the process afforded him EXHAUSTION in disciplinary proceedings. The district court dismissed the suit for failure to totally exhaust administrative remedies, and the prisoner appealed. The court of appeals vacated and remanded. The court held that under an intervening precedent, the prisoner was not required to plead exhaustion of administrative remedies. According to the court, failure to exhaust was an affirmative defense, and the prisoner did not have a duty under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) to plead or to demonstrate exhaustion of administrative remedies on his civil rights claims, and thus the district court could not require an affirmative showing of exhaustion upon its preliminary screening of the case. (Fremont Correctional Facility and Colorado State Penitentiary) U.S. District Court Henderson v. Ayers, 476 F.Supp.2d 1168 PLRA- Prison (C.D.Cal. 2007). An inmate brought a pro se and Litigation Reform in forma pauperis suit under [section] 1983 Act against an acting warden, in his individual and EXHAUSTION official capacities, claiming that the warden had denied the inmate his right to attend Friday Islamic prayer services and seeking injunctive relief. The warden moved to dismiss. The district court denied the motion. The court held that the inmate satisfied the exhaustion requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), even though he did not specifically name the warden in his grievance. The court noted that exhaustion under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is not necessarily inadequate simply because an individual later sued was not named in the grievances, but rather, compliance with prison grievance procedures is all that is required by the PLRA to properly exhaust. The court held that the inmate stated a claim for violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) and stated a claim for violation of his First Amendment rights. The inmate alleged that he had been denied excused time-off work to attend Friday Islamic prayer services, as his religion required, and that he had been subjected to progressive discipline, including loss of privileges, for attempting to attend these prayer services. (California State Prison, Los Angeles County) U.S. Appeals Court Jackson v. Johnson, 475 F.3d 261 (5th Cir. PLRA- Prison 2007). An individual who had been released from Litigation Reform prison on mandatory supervision and who resided Act in a privately operated halfway house, IN PORMA PAUPERIS apparently as a condition of his mandatory supervision, brought an action under [section] 1983 and [section] 1985, asserting that his access to the courts had been diminished in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court dismissed his suit, denied his motion for reconsideration, and, following his appeal, denied his request for leave to proceed in forma pauperis (IFF) on appeal. The court of appeals held that the individual was a "prisoner" within the meaning of the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) three strikes provision and, thus, could not proceed IFP on appeal. The appeals court denied the motion to proceed in forma pauperis and dismissed the appeal. The court noted that, to the extent that the halfway house resident argued that the state could not detain him in the halfway house because his residence there was voluntary and not a condition of his release, the propervehicle for his challenge was a habeas petition rather than a [section] 1983 action. According to the court, PLRA's three-strikes provision does not bar prisoners from proceeding in forma pauperis (IFP) in a habeas action, even if the prisoner has accumulated three strikes. According to the court, although the supervisee had been released from confinement in prison, his release was not to the general public, but was to a facility where he was locked up 16 to 24 hours a day and from which he could leave only for very limited purposes. The court noted that even if the supervisee's time at the halfway house was for primarily non-punitive purposes, that is, to reintegrate him into society, his confinement resulted from his criminal violation, as he remained under the supervision of the Pardons and Paroles Division. (Pardons and Paroles Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Fort Worth, Texas) U.S. District Court Kaufman v. Schneiter, 474 F.Supp.2d 1014 IN FORMA PAUPERIS (W.D.Wis. 2007). An inmate at a supermaximum LAW LIBRARY security prison filed a [section] 1983 action RETALIATION alleging that prison officials violated his constitutional rights. The inmate filed a motion seeking leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The district court granted the motion in part and denied in part. The court held that the inmate's claim that he was transferred to a maximum security facility in retaliation for his decision to name a warden as a defendant in a civil rights action was not frivolous, and thus the inmate was entitled to proceed in forma pauperis in his [section] 1983 action, where fact issues remained as to whether the lawsuit motivated the warden's decision to transfer the inmate. (Wisconsin Secure Program Facility) U.S. Appeals Court Phillips v. Hust, 477 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. BINDING 2007). A state prisoner brought a pro se 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. [section] 1983 action against a prison 1983 librarian in her personal and official capacities, alleging violation of his right to free speech and right of access to court under the First Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the prisoner, and subsequently awarded compensatory damages of $1,500. The librarian appealed. The appeals court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. The court held that the librarian's refusal to allow the prisoner to comb-bind his petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court violated the state prisoner's First Amendment right of access to the courts, where the prisoner raised a nonfrivolous claim in his certiorari petition, a state court applied an incorrect legal standard in determining the prisoner's ineffective assistance to counsel claim in his postconviction petition, and the denial of the use of comb-binding machine frustrated his attempt to press his claim in the Supreme Court. The court noted that even if Supreme Court rules did not require comb-binding, it was the binding method the prison routinely made available to the prisoner and others, it was foreseeable that the librarian's refusal would obstruct the prisoner's ability to file a petition in a timely manner, and the prisoner had no independent tort cause of action against the librarian for violation of his rights. The court found that the librarian was not entitled to qualified immunity for her conduct in refusing to allow the prisoner to use a comb-binding machine, where her conduct violated the prisoner's clearly established right to prepare, serve, and file court documents in a timely manner, and not to be subjected to arbitrary enforcement of prison rules. The prisoner's petition missed the Supreme Court filing deadline and was denied as untimely. The appeals court held that the librarian's refusal was blatantly contrary to past practice and state prison regulations, and under existing precedent, the librarian should have known that refusal of...