Justices recognize limited jury trial right in prisoner cases

A Michigan prisoner who alleged he was sexually abused by a prison employee and subsequently had his grievance efforts sabotaged is entitled to a jury trial addressing both the claimed violation of his civil rights as well as the government’s contention he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in affirming a decision from the 6th Circuit.

Click here to read the full text of the June 18 decision in Perttu v. Richards.

BULLET POINTS: “If Congress had expressly provided in the PLRA that exhaustion disputes must be resolved by judges, then we would have been required to consider today whether such a provision violates the Seventh Amendment. But it is a ‘cardinal principle’ that we not address such a constitutional question unless necessary. Meanwhile, as we have shown, the usual practice of the federal courts in cases of intertwinement is to send common issues to the jury. Because nothing in the PLRA suggests Congress intended to depart from that practice here, we hold that parties are entitled to a jury trial on PLRA exhaustion when that issue is intertwined with the merits of a claim protected by the Seventh Amendment.”

— Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., opinion of the court

“The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) requires prisoners suing under 42 U. S. C. §1983 to first exhaust the administrative remedies that are ‘available’ to them. In the decision below, the Sixth Circuit held that even if prisoners are not ordinarily entitled to a jury trial to resolve this threshold question, the Seventh Amendment requires a jury when exhaustion is intertwined with the merits. I would reverse. The jury right conferred by the Seventh Amendment does not depend on the degree of factual overlap between a threshold issue and the merits of the plaintiff ‘s claim.…

“Reading the PLRA’s silence to implicitly confer a right to a jury trial contravenes not only basic principles of statutory interpretation, but also several of this Court’s precedents.”

— Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh, dissenting