Inmate Entitled to Trial on First Amendment Retaliation Claim

An inmate at a Michigan prison was entitled to have his civil rights claim tried before a jury, despite questions concerning whether he exhausted his administrative remedies, the Sixth Circuit said.

Because Kyle Richards’ First Amendment claim was intertwined with the exhaustion issue, the Seventh Amendment guaranteed him a right to a jury trial, the opinion by Judge Ronald Lee Gilman said Tuesday, reversing the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to the prison.

Richards and two other inmates at the Baraga Correctional Facility in Michigan sued resident unit manager Thomas Perttu, claiming sexual harassment, retaliation, and destruction of property—only ...