MICHAEL ROSS v. SHAIDON BLAKE
Supreme Court of the United States, Kagan, June 6, 2016,
PLRA – Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 – A prisoner must exhaust available administrative remedies before filing suit

After a Maryland correctional officer allegedly assaulted an inmate, the inmate complained to another officer and the matter was referred to internal investigations. However, the prisoner failed to follow the Administrative Remedy Procedure (including formal complaint to the warden, etc). The USSC held that an internal investigation is not the same as exhausting administrative remedies, and therefore the suit could not continue unless it was shown that the administrative remedies were not actually available to the inmate.

Decision by the 4th Circuit vacated, but strongly suggested that the court should accept arguments that would work to the same end:

irst, did Maryland’s standard grievance procedures potentially offer relief to Blake or, alternatively, did the IIU investigation into his assault foreclose that possibility?
Second, even if the former, were those procedures knowable by an ordinary prisoner in Blake’s situation, or was the system so confusing that no such inmate could make use of it?
And finally, is there persuasive evidence that Maryland officials thwarted the effective invocation of the administrative process through threats, game-playing, or misrepresentations, either on a system-wide basis or in the individual case?
If the court accepts Blake’s probable arguments on one or more of these scores, then it should find (consistent this time with the PLRA) that his suit may proceed even though he did not file an ARP complaint.

It makes you wonder why the Court granted cert at all…