Cite as: 532 U. S. 731 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
parties agree), the word "exhausted" has a decidedly procedural emphasis. It makes sense only in referring to the procedural means, not the particular relief ordered. It would, for example, be very strange usage to say that a prisoner must "exhaust" an administrative order reassigning an abusive guard before a prisoner could go to court and ask for something else; or to say (in States that award money damages administratively) that a prisoner must "exhaust" his damages award before going to court for more. How would he "exhaust" a transfer of personnel? Would he have to spend the money to "exhaust" the monetary relief given him? It makes no sense to demand that someone exhaust "such administrative [redress]" as is available; one "exhausts" processes, not forms of relief, and the statute provides that one must.
A second consideration, statutory history, confirms the suggestion that Congress meant to require procedural exhaustion regardless of the fit between a prisoner's prayer for relief and the administrative remedies possible. Before § 1997e(a) was amended by the Act of 1995, a court had discretion (though no obligation) to require a state inmate to exhaust "such . . . remedies as are available," but only if those remedies were "plain, speedy, and effective." 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (1994 ed.). That scheme, however, is now a thing of the past, for the amendments eliminated both the discretion to dispense with administrative exhaustion and the condition that the remedy be "plain, speedy, and effective" before exhaustion could be required.
The significance of deleting that condition is apparent in light of our decision two years earlier in McCarthy v. Madigan, supra. In McCarthy, a federal inmate, much like Booth, sought only money damages against federal prison officials, and the Bureau of Prison's administrative procedure offered no such relief. Although § 1997e(a) did not at that time apply to suits brought against federal officials, the government argued that the Court should create an analogous
739
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007