by Douglas Ankney

On October 11, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed dismissal of Connecticut prisoner’s complaint over an assault he suffered in a Virginia lockup where he was temporarily transferred five years earlier. The Court found that Joe Baltas raised a triable fact issue when he alleged that “threats or other intimidation by prison officials” rendered their administrative remedies unavailable to him, potentially excusing his failure to exhaust those remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e.

Baltas was convicted of a 2006 Meriden home invasion where his then-girlfriend lived, stabbing her mother and fatally stabbing her stepfather. He was incarcerated in 2010 and subsequently convicted of assaulting a fellow prisoner at Cheshire Correctional Institution in January 2014. Pursuant to the Interstate Corrections Compact, the Department of Corrections (DOC) in Connecticut transferred Baltas to the Virginia DOC in December 2019. There he was incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison, where he filed an Emergency Grievance when he was placed in “general detention confinement.”

He was moved to the prison’s general population. Two weeks later, he was assaulted and stabbed repeatedly by a group of other prisoners, resulting in his hospitalization. Upon discharge, Baltas was placed in the Restrictive Housing Unit, where he remained until a transfer back to Connecticut in July 2021.

Baltas then filed his complaint pro se in federal court for the District of Connecticut pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging (1) that he was deprived of mail, access to legal communications and access to the courts at the Virginia prison, in violation of his First Amendment rights; (2) that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel due to implementation of Virginia DOC procedures; and (3) that he was subjected to unlawful conditions of confinement at Red Onion, where officials were deliberately indifferent to his safety in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The district court granted summary judgment to the Defendants, finding that Baltas had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The district court rejected as “wholly speculative and lacking substantiation” Baltas’ claim that “threats and intimidation by [Virginia DOC] staff rendered [its] grievance process unavailable to him.” Baltas appealed.

Second Circuit Takes Up Case

The Second Circuit began by observing that PLRA prohibits prisoners from bringing an action under § 1983 “until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” However, that requirement is excused if those remedies are “unavailable” to him, as held in Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016).

As the Court then explained in Lucente v. Cty. of Suffolk, 980 F.3d 284 (2d Cir. 2020), a remedy is unavailable when “(1) it operates as a simple dead end—with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief to aggrieved inmates; (2) it is so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking, incapable of use; or (3) when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation.”

Under that third exception, the Court continued, it must consider whether prison officials’ allegedly intimidating acts “would have deterred a similarly situated individual of ordinary firmness from utilizing the grievance procedures.” The threats and intimidation, moreover, must occur “in connection with the grievance process itself” and cannot be merely “a generalized fear of retaliation.”

In the instant case, the Second Circuit disagreed with the district court’s conclusion that Baltas’ claim of threats and intimidation were “wholly speculative and lacking substantiation.” While “[t]he plaintiff bears the burden of establishing availability” of a particular remedy, per Saeli v. Chautauqua Cty., 36 F.4th 445 (2d Cir. 2022), he is entitled at the summary judgment stage “to rely on his own testimony” to establish his claim—that the Virginia DOC’s grievance process was unavailable to him—as held in Rivera v. Rochester Genessee Reg’l Transp. Auth., 743 F.3d 11 (2d Cir. 2014).

In a sworn affidavit, Baltas identified Sgt. B. Meade at Red Onion State Prison, who allegedly threatened that if Baltas continued “writing everything up and filing lawsuits[,] we will get you out of the way”—and helpfully adding that meant “dead, son, dead.” Meade also allegedly told Baltas that guards had years earlier “arranged the death of another troublesome inmate” and subsequently “got away with it.”

Baltas also swore that while he was hospitalized, Cpt. S. Franklin entered his room, took responsibility for the attack, and said that “we’ll set up another one if you don’t keep your mouth shut.” In addition, Baltas supplied the statement of fellow Red Onion prisoner Jesse Thompson, who swore that he and another prisoner identified as A. Tipton had been solicited by Meade to attack Baltas and that Meade had supplied the “shank” to carry out the assault.

If all that proved true, the Second Circuit concluded, a jury could find that Baltas was “threatened and warned” by specific individuals “not to complain or file a grievance” in a manner that would deter “a similarly situated individual of ordinary firmness from utilizing the grievance procedures” at Red Onion. Thus the district court’s judgment was vacated as to Baltas’ First, Sixth and Eighth Amendment claims, and they were remanded back to that court for further proceedings. Before the Court, Baltas was represented by attorney Jeffrey A. Dennhardt with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr in New York City. See: Baltas v. Maiga, 119 F.4th 255 (2d Cir. 2024).

After returning to Connecticut, Baltas was charged with assaulting two Garner Correctional Institution guards in August 2023 and then, when moved to MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, assaulting a third guard and a prison doctor there in November 2023. After a transfer to the Rhode Island DOC’s High Security Center, and once again proceeding pro se in the instant case, he moved for an emergency injunction to return to Connecticut.

On March 17, 2025, the district court denied that motion. Because Baltas was “not seeking prospective official capacity relief to remedy any claim of ongoing or threat of a federal violation asserted in this case,” the district court said it could not grant any request for relief regarding “a matter lying wholly outside the issues in the suit.” See: Baltas v. Maiga, USDC (D. Conn.), Case No. 3:20-cv-01177.  

Additional source: CT Insider

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