Just because a person is incarcerated doesn’t mean they can be mistreated. Unfortunately, MDC and the prisons in New Mexico are poorly run and face extreme shortages of good corrections officers. Prisoners can be mistreated by bad COs or ignored by indifferent ones. Medical treatment is all too often delayed and or denied due to deliberate and callous indifference to the suffering and care of people serving their time. Such maltreatment is wrong and against the law. So, people who have been incarcerated may indeed have meritorious lawsuits to bring against their jailors, their medical providers and even the Department of Corrections itself.
But what is necessary for such a lawsuit to be successful aside from just an instance of terrible mistreatment? One thing that people who have served time probably have heard about is “making a grievance.” A grievance is a complaint heard through an administrative process set up by the department itself to hear and evaluate problems faced by prisoners. In order for a lawsuit to be successful, the instance of mistreatment must be first and promptly addressed by the prisoner through this process of making grievances.
New Mexico law states that no court shall consider a lawsuit made by an inmate or former inmate about an issue pertaining to their incarceration unless they first exhaust the corrections department’s internal grievance procedure. That means that unless the plaintiff can show that they first went through the full process of complaint/grievance and appeal, the court will not hear the lawsuit. A civil defense attorney hired to protect the prison will surely bring up this issue and move to dismiss the lawsuit if the process is not followed.
According to current New Mexico Corrections Department Policy, the inmate must make an “informal complaint” using the proper form within 5 working days of the problem occurring. The institution is then supposed to respond in writing within 5 more working days. If the inmate is not satisfied with the response, he or she must then file a “formal grievance” within 5 days of receiving the response. If the inmate has not received a response to the informal complaint within 10 working days after submitting the informal complaint, the inmate may proceed to initiate a formal grievance. In that case, the inmate should state on the inmate grievance form that no response to the informal complaint was received.
The investigation by the grievance is supposed to be reviewed within fifteen 15 working days from receipt of the grievance. If an inmate is not satisfied with the prison’s decision, the inmate may appeal that decision up higher within five 5 working days of receiving the decision.
If you want a copy of Department of Corrections regulations about exactly how an inmate must make a complaint, please contact me by phone or email and I will send one to you. A similar process applies to MDC.
The important point here is that the inmate must complete this entire process or risk being unable to file a lawsuit and get real relief from a court. Certainly, there may be some situations where a person demonstrably cannot follow this grievance procedure due to their medical incapacity or due to the prison’s unwillingness to provide these forms. However, this type of situation is much more difficult to fix from your lawyer’s perspective; an inmate serious about his or her problem should do everything in their power to get the grievances filed perfectly to allow their suit to eventually proceed. In receiving justice, nothing should stop you from getting these preliminary aspects done to the absolute best of your abilities.
