MIM Notes 211                   June 1, 2000

MIM Legal Notes 

Prisoners must jump through hoops for redress of grievances 
submitted by a Tennessee prisoner 

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects 
"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition 
the Government for a redress of grievances." Grievances filed 
through an official grievance procedure are constitutionally 
protected.(1) This is true even though there is no constitutional 
requirement that prisons have a grievance system(2) or that they 
follow its procedures if they do have one.(3) Congress has passed 
laws making it mandatory that prisoners use the grievance 
procedure before filing a complaint in the courts,(4) and a 
failure to do so will result in your complaint being dismissed. 
The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec 
1997e, encourages prison systems to create grievance procedures 
and submit them for federal certification, but the failure to do 
so does not violate prisoners' rights.(5) 

Example: Grievance procedure in Tennessee 

In the State of Tennessee, Inmate Grievance Procedures are found 
in TDOC Administrative Policies and Procedures, Index Number 
501.01. Among prisoners, it's known as TDOC Policy No. 501.01. The 
Commissioner of Corrections has established this policy and all 
institutions in the State of Tennessee are bound by it. A copy of 
the policy can be found in the law library. If you are on maximum 
security, you can write a request to the unit team, and you are 
supposed to be given access to the policy. If you request to view 
the policy and are denied, write a grievance, and appeal it to the 
Assistant Commissioner, Operations, Jim Rose. Before your 
grievance goes to Jim Rose, there are certain steps or procedures 
the grievance must go through. TDOC policy No. 501.01, sets forth 
the steps and procedures. For example, section VI. C. 1., gives 
you seven days to file a grievance from the time of the incident 
you are complaining about. Then the Grievance Chairperson has 
seven days to process the grievance, get a response from the 
person's supervisor you are writing the grievance on, and notify 
you of that response. All this is supposed to occur within the 
first seven days that the grievance is filed. If you are satisfied 
with the supervisor's response, you can resolve the matter or stop 
the grievance. If you choose to resolve the grievance, you cannot 
later file a lawsuit about the problem. If you are not satisfied 
with the first level response, you can appeal that decision and 
then it goes to the second level. Section VI.C.2. of TDOC Policy 
No. 501.01 outlines the next step. Within give days of being 
notified of the level one response, you can decide to appeal. Once 
you decide to appeal, you are supposed to meet the grievance 
board. You tell the grievance board why you disagree with the 
supervisor's response, cite any policy to support your argument. 
Within five working days of meeting the grievance board, the 
grievance board's decision will be forwarded to the institutional 
warden. The warden will review the grievance board's decision, and 
within seven working days of the receiving the grievance, will 
forward the warden's decision back to the Grievance Chairperson. 
Within five working days of receiving the warden's response, the 
Grievance Chairperson will allow you to view the warden's 
response. The warden will either agree or disagree with the 
Grievance Board's decision. Once you see the warden's decision, 
you can either resolve, or appeal the grievance to the next level. 
If you resolve the grievance at this level, you cannot use this 
grievance to bring a lawsuit. To start a lawsuit, you must appeal 
the grievance all the way to the third level. Section VI. C.3. of 
TDOC Policy 501.01 outlines the third level. Within five days of 
receiving the warden's response you can appeal to the Assistant 
Commissioner of Operations. All documentation that has been put 
together, supervisor's responses, grievance response, 
institutional warden's response is all forwarded to the 
Commissioner, Asst. Comm. Within twenty-five days of receiving 
your grievance, the Asst. Commissioner is supposed to send a 
decision back to the Grievance Chairperson, and the Grievance 
Chairperson is supposed to give you a copy of the grievance, Asst. 
Comm.'s response, warden's response, Grievance, Board's decision, 
and supervisor's response. This is exhausting your administrative 
remedies. You are now ready to file a lawsuit if the issue you 
grieved is a violation of state law or constitutional law. The 
TDOC Policy No. 501.01 VI. D, states what you cannot write a 
grievance on: (1) Disciplinary procedures, or any adverse action 
taken against you by the disciplinary board; (2) Any action taken 
by the Parole Board; (3) Classification matters, which include 
placement on maximum security; (4) Anything dealing with 
sentencing credits; (5) Seeking monetary compensation, for lost 
property, an injury etc...; (6) Protesting about the requirements 
of community service center, or indocile program plan 
participation; (7) Any question about your prison sentence; (8) 
Visitation; and (9) Medical diagnoses. The majority of these 
issues have other appeals processes that you would be wise to find 
out about, and utilize before suing in the courts. One note before 
moving on, the grievance procedure is supposed to be confidential, 
so if your grievances are not being handled in a confidential 
manner, or the person you wrote the grievance on is harassing or 
intimidating you about the grievance, write a grievance about 
that. When you write a grievance, don't think that prison 
officials are there to help you. They are not going to admit 
wrongdoing. It is up to you to get other prisoners to write 
grievances or statements for you to bring to the grievance board. 
It is up to you to get your evidence together to prove your case. 
I've also become aware of the fact, that prison officials will 
play prisoner against prisoner. If you start filing grievances 
about prison officials, they will go to other prisoners and say, 
"If it wasn't for so and so filing those grievances, things 
wouldn't be so bad." Prison officials will make it seem as if the 
oppressive conditions are the fault of the person writing the 
grievance. This is in an attempt to direct prisoners' animosity 
toward the person attempting to correct the situation, and not the 
person responsible for the situation. This tactic has proven 
effective for prison officials, so it is widely used. You must be 
consistent. For instance, don't write a grievance because the food 
is cold today and fail to follow up tomorrow. Each time the food 
is cold, write a grievance. Each time prison officials disrespect 
you write a grievance. In this way you are building a case showing 
a pattern of abuse. Every time a prison violates one of their 
stupid little rules, they write you up, so every time they violate 
policy, write them up. The reason that the grievance procedure can 
be an effective tool is because so many different people have to 
put their signature on it. This means that they have knowledge of 
the violation, and, if they have knowledge of the violation, they 
have a professional duty to correct the situation. If they fail to 
correct the situation, they are just as much at fault as the 
person who actually caused the violation. 

MIM Prison Minister adds:The Amerikan prison system requires 
prisoners to jump through hoops to secure basic needs and to stop 
inhumane treatment. The above article is helpful in outlining what 
prisoners need to know (in part) before filing lawsuits. The 
article is also instructive for readers on the outside who think 
that Amerika's prisons are just. From this alone, it should be 
clear that prisoners must go through extensive processes to fight 
for rights. Together with articles throughout MIM Notes 
demonstrating that prisoners are harassed and brutalized for 
fighting for legal rights, it should be clear that prisoners are 
treated as subhuman in Amerika. The author states that every 
complaint should be documented. While we agree that prisoners must 
maintain meticulous records if they choose to fight various forms 
of oppression in prison through the courts, we must emphasize that 
Amerikan courts will never end prison oppression. MIM Legal Notes 
and the work of MIM's Prisoners' Legal Clinic seek to serve the 
needs of prisoners with an underlying purpose. These are tactics 
to make it more possible for prisoners to effectively fight for 
survival and to better enable prisoners to fight against the 
corrupt Amerikan prison system and imperialism. We agree that you 
must follow through the correct hoops if you seek to challenge 
prison conditions legally. However, you should also think through 
which battles are winnable and which battles are most important to 
be fighting. We also remind prisoners that it is important to help 
us make the winnable battles most effective. For instance, if you 
break ground in the battle against censorship, you should share 
the information with MIM, summing up the successes and failures 
and allow MIM to distribute the relevant information to other 
prisoners so that they do not have to start from scratch. 

Notes: 1. See: Jackson v. Cain, 864 F.2d 1235, 1248-49 (5th 
Circuit. 1989); Sprouse v. Babcock, 870 F. 2d, 450, 452 (8th 
Circuit 1989); Williams v. Meese, 926 F. 2d 994, 998 (10th Circuit 
1991); and Wildberger v. Bracknell, 869 F2d 1467, 1468 (11th 
Circuit 1989). 2. Spencer v Moore, 638 F. Supp. 315, 316 (E.D. Mo. 
1986); Lopez v Robinson, 914 F. 2d 486, 494-95 (4th Circuit 1990). 
3. See: Wildberger v. Brackenell and Spencer v. Moore, cited 
above. 4. See 42 U.S.C. Sec 1997 e and 28 U.S.C. Sec 1915. 5. Mann 
v. Adams, 846 F. 2d 589, 590 (9th Circuit), cert. denied (1988). 

MIM Legal Notes is researched and written by our comrades behind 
the walls. We publish these articles because we believe that the 
legal research and arguments will be useful to other prisoners. 
But comrades should be aware that differences in laws between 
states, changes in laws and legal precedents over time, and 
different case circumstances all mean that even something that was 
successful for one person might not work for others. We print the 
best legal writing available to us with the understanding that 
this program will only grow stronger with increased exposure and 
participation. We encourage all prisoners and non-prisoners to 
contribute to this program with research and writing.