Supreme Court wrestles with whether PLRA exhaustion disputes must be decided by judges or juries

The U.S. Supreme Court heard argument in Pertoux v. Richards over whether courts must decide exhaustion under the Prison Litigation Reform Act or whether juries should decide that question when the factual issues are intertwined with the merits. Miss Sherman, counsel for the petitioner (the state), told the court that “Exhaustion is the centerpiece of Congress's reforms under the Prison Litigation Reform Act,” and urged the justices to preserve judge-led, early-stage exhaustion rulings.

The issue matters because exhaustion determinations can bar suits before they proceed to the merits, and the question presented affects both the scope of prisoners’ access to jury trials under the Seventh Amendment and the practical operation of prison grievance systems. Counsel for the respondent, Miss McGill, argued that where the same factual question governs both exhaustion and the merits, the jury must decide that factual question and that Beacon Theatres and related precedent protect the jury role.

Sherman emphasized that PLRA exhaustion is a mandatory prerequisite to suit and warned that sending intertwined exhaustion questions to juries would “increase this burden while incentivizing nonexhaustion and undermining the goals and structure of…