Donimic Brooks v. Todd Thomas

MEMORANDUM

Donimic T. Brooks, a Hawaii state prisoner, appeals pro se from the district court’s judgment dismissing for failure to exhaust administrative remedies his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that defendants retaliated against him while he was housed in Arizona. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We review de novo. Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1171 (9th Cir.2014) (en banc). We affirm.

The district court properly concluded that Brooks failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to the alleged retaliatory removal from the religious program because Brooks did not exhaust his grievance to the final level of review and he did not demonstrate that administrative remedies were effectively unavailable to him. See Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 85, 93-95 , 126 S.Ct. 2378 , 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) (holding that “proper exhaustion” is mandatory and requires adherence to administrative procedural rules); Sapp v. Kimbrell, 623 F.3d 813, 823-24 (9th Cir.2010) (describing limited circumstances under which administrative remedies are deemed unavailable or exhaustion is excused). Moreover, Brooks failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to the alleged retaliatory…