Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Richey v. Dahne (9th Cir. - Dec. 8, 2015)

This opinion helps give you a sense of the actual workings of the administration exhaustion process in prisons:

"As an inmate at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center, Richey filed a grievance on November 11, 2011, alleging that a guard denied him his “right to yard, a shower, and clean underwear.” Richey alleged that he did not know the guard’s name and that he described her “accurately” as an “extremely obese Hispanic female guard.” The grievance was returned to Richey with a note to “Rewrite- appropriately. Just stick to the issue of what happened, when, who was involved.” Richey submitted a revised grievance on November 17, 2011, containing similar allegations and similar references to the guard’s weight, with the words “who,” “when,” and “what happened” inserted into the narrative. The grievance was again returned to him with an order to “Rewrite as directed. Hispanic Female is adiquit [sic]. Extremely Obese is unnecessary and inappropriate.”

Rather than rewrite the grievance, Richey wrote a kite to the grievance coordinator on November 28, 2011, asking for clarification of the word “adiquit”and explaining that his description of the guard’s weight was “necessary and appropriate in helping him identify her,” as he did not know her name. He asked the coordinator “not to punish [him] by rejecting [his] grievance because [the coordinator] disagreed with [his] choice of language.” When Richey did not receive a response, he wrote another kite on December 7 asking “ARE YOU GOING TO PROCESS MY PROPERLY SUBMITTED GRIEVANCE OR WHAT? I’M NOT REWRITING IT SO DO YOUR JOB AND PROCESS IT.” Dahne responded in writing, “No, due to your decision not to rewrite as requested your grievance has been administraitevly [sic] withdrawn.”"

Not impressive.