Non-Grievable: Seven Grievances To See My Own Discovery

By Ryan Nichols

I filed seven grievances trying to see the evidence the government was going to use against me.

Here is what my own log says came back.

One answer said NON-GRIEVABLE.

One answer pointed at a different grievance number.

One answer said I will be put on the discovery list, which is an admission that I was not on it.

Four got no answer at all.

Read that again. A man in pretrial detention, presumed innocent, using the only paperwork channel the building gives him, asking to look at his own case file. The answer that came back was that the request was not the kind of thing you are allowed to complain about.

The plain English version

I kept a log of every grievance I filed inside the D.C. Department of Corrections. Twenty nine filings in the detailed sheet, from November 2021 to July 2022. Seven of them are filed under one complaint type: DENIED ACCESS TO DISCOVERY.

Discovery is not a favor. It is the evidence in your own case. You cannot build a defense against something you are not allowed to look at.

This article is about those seven rows and nothing else. No medical rows. No mental health rows. No sealed material. Just the discovery lane, exactly as the log records it.

Why it matters

Every other complaint in a jail is about conditions. Food, water, hygiene, heat. Those matter, and I have written about them.

This one is different. This one reaches into the courtroom.

If a detainee cannot see his discovery, the trial that follows is not a fair fight, and no amount of good lawyering fixes it from the outside. Defense attorneys, court watchers, and anybody who cares about the Sixth Amendment should read the seven rows below and ask one question.

If the grievance system will not hear a discovery complaint, where exactly was I supposed to take it?

The receipt

RYAN STATEMENT. Every row below is from my own compiled grievance log. NEEDS AUTHENTICATION. The signed DOC forms behind these IGP numbers are not posted yet. Until they are, treat the numbers as my log, not as certified records.

Filed	IGP number	Concern	Step	Response	What the response says
2022-03-09	none assigned	Legal communication	1	No	NO RESPONSE
2022-05-20	20220527-603	Legal communication	2	Yes	NON GRIEVABLE (SEE STEP 3 BELOW)
2022-05-28	20220601-693	Denied Evidence.com	1 and 2	Yes	INMATE WILL BE PUT ON DISCOVERY LIST
2022-05-28	none assigned	Legal communication	2	No	NO RESPONSE
2022-06-01	20220527-603	Legal communication	3	Yes	THIS ISSUE IN THIS GRIEVANCE IS ADDRESSED IN #20220512-288
2022-07-05	none assigned	Denied Evidence.com	3	No	NO RESPONSE
2022-07-05	none assigned	Legal mail confiscated	4	No	NO RESPONSE

Three of the seven were never assigned an IGP number at all. A grievance with no number is a grievance that does not exist in anybody file drawer but mine.

The three answers, one at a time

One. Non-grievable.

FACT, as recorded in my log. The Step 2 answer on 20220527-603 reads NON GRIEVABLE.

That phrase is the same phrase that came back on 2022-03-19 when I filed about the grievance process itself, IGP 20220328-491. Same two words. Different subject.

So the system position, twice, was that the thing I was complaining about was outside the system.

Two. Go read a different number.

FACT, as recorded in my log. The Step 3 answer on the same grievance reads: THIS ISSUE IN THIS GRIEVANCE IS ADDRESSED IN #20220512-288.

DOCUMENTED INFERENCE. The number in that answer, 20220512-288, does not appear anywhere else in my log as a grievance I filed. So the answer to my discovery complaint was a pointer to a file I cannot find in my own record.

DOCUMENTED INFERENCE, and it needs the forms to settle. My log records the Step 3 as filed 2022-06-01 with a response date of 2022-05-27. That is a response dated five days before the step it answers. The Step 2 on the same number carries that identical 2022-05-27 response date. The most likely explanation is a logging artifact, one answer stamped across two steps. It is not proof of anything by itself. It is a reason to get the signed forms.

Three. He will be put on the discovery list.

FACT, as recorded in my log. On 2022-06-02 the answer to 20220601-693 reads INMATE WILL BE PUT ON DISCOVERY LIST.

Read what that sentence concedes. It does not say the complaint was wrong. It says the fix was coming.

Then look at the next row. 2022-07-05, Step 3, denied Evidence.com, NO RESPONSE. More than a month after the promise, the same complaint was still being filed, and this time nothing came back at all.

The timeline

2022-01-29. Denied access to attorney. No IGP number assigned. No response.

2022-03-09. First discovery grievance in the log. No IGP number assigned. No response.

2022-05-20 through 2022-06-02. The only stretch in the whole run where anybody answered a discovery complaint. Three answers. One says non-grievable, one says see a different number, one says the list is coming.

2022-07-05. Two filings on the same day. Step 3 on Evidence.com. Step 4 on legal mail confiscated. Both no response.

2022-07-16. The last filing in the log. Grievance process broken. Step 4. No response.

That is the shape of it. It starts with no number and no answer, it gets a burst of paperwork in the middle, and it ends at Step 4 in silence.

What the record shows

Seven filings on one subject over four months.

Four with no response of any kind.

Three with no IGP number assigned.

Zero marked resolved.

One written admission that a fix was owed, followed by the same complaint continuing.

What I say

RYAN STATEMENT. I was not asking for a favor and I was not asking for a lawyer job to be done for me. I was asking to look at the material in my own case so I could help prepare my own defense. I filed it the way the building told me to file it. I went to Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 and Step 4. I did the process.

The process is what failed.

I am not asking anybody to take my word for it. I am asking for the forms.

What still needs authentication

The signed DOC grievance forms behind every IGP number in that table. My log points at them. It is not a substitute for them.

Grievance 20220512-288, the number cited in the Step 3 answer. I want to see what it says.

The full Evidence.com access record for the relevant period, which would show when I actually got on that list, if I ever did.

What this does not prove

It does not prove anybody broke the law. A grievance log is a record of complaints and answers, not a court finding.

It does not prove why any single answer was written the way it was. A missing number can be a filing failure. A response date out of order can be a clerk stamping a batch.

It does not establish which building I was housed in on which date. That is a records request, and it is still outstanding.

I will not stretch this past what the paper carries. That is the whole point of keeping the paper.

What it does prove

That seven separate times, over four months, I put a Sixth Amendment complaint into the only channel available to me.

That the channel answered three times and went silent four.

That one of those answers was that the complaint was not permitted to exist.

Those are not adjectives. Those are rows with dates on them.

What I need

If you are a defense attorney, a paralegal, a court watcher, or somebody who was in that building in 2021 or 2022, read the table and tell me what your record shows. If you filed on discovery and got the same two words back, I want to see your paperwork.

Do not threaten anyone. Do not harass anyone. Do not contact anyone in my name.

Read it. Share it. Send receipts, evidence, and witnesses. Put eyes on the record.

The habeas petition that came out of this period is posted in full: Nichols v. Garland, No. 1:22-cv-02356 (D.D.C.), ECF 1.

The Step 4 emergency grievance that got no response is here: Step 4. Emergency. Deputy Director. No Response.

The long version of all of it is the book: Fighting Shadows.

And if you are reading this thinking you need a place to put your own record where nobody can take it down, that is what I build now. Here is how that works.

The record does not lie. Release the forms.