The Plaintiff filed a pro se action under 42 U.S. C. sec. 1983, alleging that the Defendant Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections is violating his Eighth Amendment right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment by subjecting him to exposure to secondhand smoke.  The Plaintiff seeks an order that the Evans Correctional Institution and any other South Carolina prison where Plaintiff might be incarcerated not be allowed to sell cigarettes to prisoners.  In the alternative, Plaintiff seeks a transfer to a no-smoking facility.  A magistrate judge recommended that the Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief be denied because the Plaintiff had not exhausted his administrative remedies.  The Plaintiff had not properly completed a grievance form.  Furthermore, the Court found that “Plaintiff is unlikely to prevail on the merits because he has not demonstrated or alleged that the level of ETS at Evans is unreasonably high.”

2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79634 (U.S.D.C. D. So. Car., Greenville Div.).