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ARTICLE · 13 JULY 2017

For It's One, Two, Three Strikes and Prisoner Suits (Might Be) Out

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Congress may have intended some or all of these results, or Congress may not have considered them at all.

United StatesLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Anna Morris
Anna Morris
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This is the third and final post in a series examining the effect of inmate litigation on federal dockets. (See the first two articles here and here.)

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), enacted by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote to respond to the prisoner "litigation explosion,"1 has reduced the number of prisoner suits.   But more than twenty years later, federal dockets remain loaded with inmate litigation. Forty percent of the Fifth Circuit's docket is occupied by prisoner suits – about ninety percent of which are unsuccessful. My last article explored an under-utilized tool to deter frivolous prisoner claims: the Spears hearing; another such tool is the "Three Strikes Rule," codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1915.

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