Lawrence Dewayne Wallace v. Illinois Department of Corrections, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment based on Lawrence Dewayne Wallace's failure to exhaust available administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The court held that Wallace's grievances did not fully exhaust his First Amendment claim concerning the alleged confiscation of a manuscript before he filed suit. The court denied Wallace's motion to file auxiliary exhibits and dismissed the case without prejudice.

Holdings

1. Plaintiff failed to exhaust available administrative remedies before filing his § 1983 action because the appeals of his first and third grievances were still pending when suit was filed.
2. The second grievance did not exhaust the claims at issue because it complained about the lack of a response to the first grievance and the adequacy of an investigation, but did not provide facts placing prison officials on notice of an alleged unconstitutional confiscation of the manuscript.
3. The grievance process remained available when Plaintiff filed suit because the Administrative Review Board's response was still within Illinois's aspirational six-month period and the record did not establish that the pending process was a dead end or otherwise unusable.
4. Plaintiff's motion for leave to file auxiliary exhibits was denied because the court does not permit non-attorney third parties to file documents and the proposed exhibits were not relevant to exhaustion.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Plaintiff exhausted available administrative remedies before filing his First Amendment § 1983 action.
2. Whether Plaintiff's second grievance exhausted the manuscript-confiscation claim by requesting a response to his first grievance.
3. Whether the prison grievance process became unavailable because prison officials failed to address the confiscation allegations or because the Administrative Review Board had not yet responded.
4. Whether Plaintiff should be permitted to file auxiliary exhibits from a non-attorney third party.

Disposition

dismissed