James E. Walker v. Robin Rowald

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted October 16, 2023*
Decided October 17, 2023
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1398
JAMES E. WALKER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ROBIN ROWALD, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
No. 3:21-cv-01175-SMY
Staci M. Yandle,
Judge.
O R D E R
James Walker sued prison officials by alleging unrelated constitutional claims
against different defendants. The district court severed Walker’s suit into five cases.
F ED. R. C IV. P. 20(a)(2). This case concerns only Walker’s claim that prison officials
mishandled his grievances in violation of his First Amendment rights. Because the
* Appellees were not served with process and are not participating in this appeal.
After examining the appellant’s brief and the record, we have concluded that the case is
appropriate for summary disposition. See F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 23-1398 Page 2
district court correctly ruled that the allegations did not state a violation of those rights,
we affirm.
Walker initially alleged in this case that prison officials ignored his grievances,
denied them, or delayed sending them to the prison’s grievance board. The district
court screened the complaint, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and dismissed it without prejudice,
explaining that the allegations were too vague to comply with Rule 8 of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure. The court then allowed Walker to amend his complaint. In his
amended complaint, Walker specified that the officials mishandled his grievances “in
apparent retaliation to prevent timely exhaustion,” leaving him “unable” to sue over
“conditions of his confinement” and “deficiencies in his medical treatment.”
The district court dismissed the amended complaint, this time with prejudice. It
reasoned that Walker failed to state a claim that prison officials violated his First
Amendment rights because nothing in his complaint plausibly suggested that prison
officials prevented him from redressing his grievances in court. At most, the court
explained, officials made administrative remedies unavailable to him, but Walker has
no constitutional right to those remedies, and if they were unavailable to him, then he
need not exhaust them before filing suit.
On appeal, Walker maintains that he stated a claim under the First Amendment
because, by mishandling his grievances, the officers prevented him from suing in court.
Walker has a First Amendment right to “petition the government for a redress of
grievances,” Antonelli v. Sheahan, 81 F.3d 1422, 1430 (7th Cir. 1996), but the officers’
alleged mishandling of his grievances did not prevent him from exercising that right. If
Walker can show that he could not exhaust administrative remedies because prison
officials have not made them “available,” then he is relieved of the duty to exhaust and
may sue in court. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632, 644 (2016). Thus
the officers did not violate his First Amendment right to petition the government.
Likewise, because prisoners do not have a standalone constitutional right to an effective
grievance procedure, the alleged mishandling of his grievances was not itself a
constitutional violation. See Grieveson v. Anderson, 538 F.3d 763, 772 (7th Cir. 2008).
Walker raises two other, unavailing arguments. First, he contends that the
district court should have allowed him to amend his complaint again, but the district
court appropriately denied him that chance because it had already granted Walker an
adequate opportunity to address the deficiencies in his pleadings. See Always Towing &
Recovery, Inc. v. City of Milwaukee, 2 F.4th 695, 707 (7th Cir. 2021). Second, Walker argues

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No. 23-1398 Page 3
that the district court abused its discretion by not recruiting counsel for him. But Walker
never asked the district court to recruit counsel for his grievance-mishandling
allegations. True, the district court recruited counsel for Walker before severing his
grievance-mishandling allegations into this new case in 2021. But because he never
renewed a request for counsel in this separate case, it was reasonable for the district
court not to recruit counsel here. See Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647 (7th Cir. 2007)
(en banc).
AFFIRMED

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