Opinion
Civil Action No. 18-52 Erie
11-02-2018
JAMIE CRUZ, SR, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM R. CUNNINGHAM, et al., Defendants.
District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter
MAGISTRATE JUDGE'S REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
I. RECOMMENDATION
It is respectfully recommended that Defendants' Motions to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 32, 35, 37) be granted and Plaintiff's Motion to add another defendant (ECF No. 31) be denied. It is further recommended that Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction (ECF No. 52) be denied.
II. REPORT
A. Factual Background
Plaintiff Jamie Cruz, Sr ("Plaintiff"), acting pro se, initiated this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on February 16, 2018. ECF No. 1. His motion to proceed in forma pauperis was granted on March 22, 2018 (ECF No. 5) and his Complaint was docketed the following day. ECF No. 6. Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint on June 20, 2018. ECF No. 28. That document is the operative pleading in this action.
The allegations in the Amended Complaint stem from an incident in which Plaintiff was arrested and charged with assault in the wake of a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. According to Plaintiff, he was charged with assault on May 16, 2016, and "the judge gave [him] a ($1,000,000) one million dollar straight cash bond." ECF No. 28 at 1. On July 7, 2016, Plaintiff attended a preliminary hearing at which his girlfriend testified that Plaintiff "didn't do nothing to her other then [sic] smacked her in the face and . . . threatened to cause harm to her." Id. at 1-2. The Magisterial District Judge presiding over the hearing, Defendant Paul Bizarro ("Bizarro"), then committed "a major legal error" by binding over the charges to a higher court without any evidence. Id.
In his motion to add another defendant, Plaintiff alleges that the judge presiding over this initial appearance was Magisterial Judge Carney. Plaintiff's motion seeks to add Judge Carney to this action as a defendant based on the "impossible" nature of this bail amount. ECF No. 31.
Sometime thereafter, Plaintiff, with the assistance of counsel, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus. Id. at 2. Defendant Judge William Cunningham ("Cunningham") denied Plaintiff's petition without any "comments" or "reason" because he is allegedly "known for not dropping charges when it comes to Domestic relations." Id.
On an unspecified date, Defendant John Holmes ("Holmes"), the detective handling Plaintiff's case, visited Plaintiff at the Erie County Prison and told him that he "better take a plea" because he was going to be found guilty "no matter what" and "when [he] lost they would ask for no less then [sic] 10-20 years in prison." Id. at 2. Plaintiff was frightened and told his attorney that "I'm willing to take a plea even if I was actually not guilty of the crimes." Id.
On another unspecified occasion, Defendant Elizabeth Hirz ("Hirz"), the district attorney, advised Plaintiff that if he took a plea he would only receive a sentence of one to two years. Id. Plaintiff agreed to take a plea. Id. At sentencing, however, the judge "did not do as promise[d]" and sentenced him to two-and-a-half to five years. Id.
Plaintiff contends that each of the Defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights "by forcing [him] to agree to all the terms on record and take a plea." Id. at 3. By way of relief, Plaintiff seeks release from custody, to have all charges dropped, dismissed and expunged, his name cleared, and $1,500 in damages for each day that he has been in custody. ECF No. 6 at 3.
B. Standards of Review
1. Pro se Litigants
Pro se pleadings, "however inartfully pleaded," must be held to "less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-521 (1972). If the court can reasonably read pleadings to state a valid claim on which the litigant could prevail, it should do so despite failure to cite proper legal authority, confusion of legal theories, poor syntax and sentence construction, or litigant's unfamiliarity with pleading requirements. Boag v. MacDougall, 454 U.S. 364 (1982); United States ex rel. Montgomery v. Bierley, 141 F.2d 552, 555 (3d Cir. 1969) (petition prepared by a prisoner may be inartfully drawn and should be read "with a measure of tolerance"); Smith v. U.S. District Court, 956 F.2d 295 (D.C. Cir. 1992); Freeman v. Dep't of Corrections, 949 F.2d 360 (10th Cir. 1991). Under our liberal pleading rules, during the initial stages of litigation, a district court should construe all allegations in a complaint in favor of the complainant. Gibbs v. Roman, 116 F.3d 83 (3d Cir. 1997). See, e.g., Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir. 1996) (discussing Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) standard); Markowitz v. Northeast Land Co., 906 F.2d 100, 103 (3d Cir. 1990) (same).
2. Motion to dismiss
A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint. Kost v. Kozakiewicz, 1 F.3d 176, 183 (3d Cir. 1993). In deciding a motion to dismiss, the court is not opining on whether the plaintiff will be likely to prevail on the merits; rather, the plaintiff must only present factual allegations sufficient "to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007) (citing 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216, pp. 235-236 (3d ed. 2004)). See also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009)). A complaint should only be dismissed pursuant to Rule 12 (b)(6) if it fails to allege "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570 (rejecting the traditional 12 (b)(6) standard established in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957)). In making this determination, the court must accept as true all well-pled factual allegations in the complaint and views them in a light most favorable to the plaintiff. U.S. Express Lines Ltd. v. Higgins, 281 F.3d 383, 388 (3d Cir. 2002).
While a complaint does not need detailed factual allegations to survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must provide more than labels and conclusions. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. A "formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Id. (citing Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)). Moreover, a court need not accept inferences drawn by a plaintiff if they are unsupported by the facts as set forth in the complaint. See California Pub. Employee Ret. Sys. v. The Chubb Corp., 394 F.3d 126, 143 (3d Cir. 2004) (citing Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997)). Nor must the Court accept legal conclusions disguised as factual allegations. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citing Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)). See also McTernan v. City of York, Pennsylvania, 577 F.3d 521, 531 (3d Cir. 2009) ("The tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.").
Expounded on the Twombly/Iqbal line of cases, the Third Circuit has articulated the following three-step approach:
First, the court must 'tak[e] note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state a claim.' Second, the court should identify allegations that, 'because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.' Finally, 'where there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement for relief.'Burtch v. Milberg Factors, Inc., 662 F.3d 212, 221 (3d Cir. 2011) (quoting Santiago v. Warminster Twp., 629 F.3d 121, 130 (3d Cir. 2010)). This determination is "a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.
C. Analysis
1. Motions to Dismiss
In seeking dismissal, Defendants primarily rely on the United States Supreme Court's holding in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). In Heck, the Supreme Court held that, in order to recover damages for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must first prove that "the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such a determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus." Id. at 486-87. "A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983." Id. at 487 (emphasis in the original).
Here, Plaintiff asserts that Holmes and Hirz threatened him into accepting a guilty plea and promised him that he would receive a lighter sentence than he ultimately received. Plaintiff alleges that the judicial defendants, Bizarro and Cunningham, committed legal error by binding his case over for trial and refusing to grant habeas relief. By requesting "$1,500.00 per day in custody" in damages, Plaintiff is clearly seeking to recover monetary damages for what he believes to have been an unconstitutional conviction and imprisonment. However, he has failed to allege that his conviction has been reversed on appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal, or called into question by a writ of habeas corpus. To the contrary, his Complaint reveals that Plaintiff remains in custody and is still in the process of exhausting his state-court remedies so that he may pursue habeas relief in federal court. See Cruz v. Commonwealth, No. 1:18-cv-02, ECF No. 6 (administratively closing Plaintiff's federal habeas action to allow him to pursue collateral relief in state court). As a result, Plaintiff is barred from attacking the validity of his conviction here as a means of recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
It is well-settled that matters of public record, including official court dockets and court files, may be considered by the Court without converting a motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. Schmidt v. Skolas, 770 F.3d 241 (3d Cir. 2014); City of Pittsburgh v. West Penn Power Co., 147 F.3d 256, 259 (3d Cir. 1998).
To the extent that Plaintiff seeks immediate release from prison and other declaratory relief, "[i]t is well-settled that inmates may not use civil rights actions to challenge the fact or duration of their confinement or to seek earlier or speedier release." Black v. Moser, 2018 WL 3239775, at *1 (M.D. Pa. July 3, 2018) (citing Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1975)). This is because, "when a state prisoner is challenging the very fact or duration of his physical imprisonment, and the relief he seeks is a determination that he is entitled to immediate release or a speedier release from that imprisonment, his sole federal remedy is a writ of habeas corpus." Preiser, 411 U.S. at 500. See also Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 81-82 (2005) ("[A] state prisoner's § 1983 action is barred (absent prior invalidation)—no matter the relief sought (damages or equitable relief), no matter the target of the prisoner's suit (state conduct leading to conviction or internal prison proceedings)—if success in that action would necessarily demonstrate the invalidity of confinement or its duration.") (emphasis in original). Consequently, Plaintiff's request for declaratory relief, including his immediate release from custody, must also be dismissed.
Because each of Plaintiff's claims is clearly barred by Heck and Wilkinson, the Court need not address the alternative grounds for dismissal asserted by the judicial and prosecutorial defendants. --------
2. Motion to add new defendant
Plaintiff has filed a motion requesting permission to add another judicial officer, Magisterial Judge Carney, as a defendant. ECF No. 31. Plaintiff alleges that Carney erred while presiding over Plaintiff's initial appearance by setting an "impossible" bail amount of $1,000,000.00. Id. at 1. For the same reasons discussed above, Plaintiff's proposed claims against Magisterial Judge Carney clearly run afoul of Heck and its progeny. Plaintiff's request to amend his complaint to add Carney as a defendant should be denied as futile.
3. Motion for Preliminary Injunction
On September 14, 2018, Plaintiff filed a Petition for Injunctive Relief. ECF No. 52. Plaintiff's request for injunctive relief does not relate to any of his underlying claims in this matter; rather, he contends that the prison's new policies for handling inmate mail are unfair and may result in unspecified harm. Id. ¶¶ 2-3.
Because the purpose of preliminary injunctive relief is to prevent irreparable injury pending the resolution of the underlying claims on their merits, "the injury claimed in the motion for preliminary injunctive relief must relate to the conduct alleged and permanent relief sought in the plaintiff's complaint." James v. Varano, 2017 WL 895569, at *3 (M.D. Pa. Mar. 7, 2017). In other words, "there must be a connection between the underlying complaint and the relief requested in the motion for a preliminary injunction." Id. (citing Ball v. Famiglio, 396 Fed. Appx. 836, 837 (3d Cir. 2010)). A district court "should not issue an injunction when the injunction in question is not of the same character, and deals with a matter lying wholly outside the issues in the suit." Kaimowitz v. Orlando, Fla., 122 F.3d 41, 43 (11th Cir. 1997) (citing De Beers Consol. Mines v. United States, 325 U.S. 212, 220 (1945)).
Here, the claims asserted in Plaintiff's Complaint address the validity of his arrest, trial, and incarceration for domestic assault. His motion for injunctive relief targets a prison mail issue that is wholly disconnected from those underlying claims. Moreover, as discussed above, his underlying claims are meritless and subject to dismissal. Under such circumstances, injunctive relief is plainly inappropriate. See, e.g., Ball, 396 Fed. Appx. at 837 (requiring "a relationship between the injury claimed in the party's motion and the conduct asserted in the complaint" in order for preliminary injunctive relief to be granted); Adams v. Freedom Forge Corp., 204 F.3d 475, 484 (3d Cir. 2000) (affirming denial of injunction where plaintiffs' alleged harm was "insufficiently related to the complaint and [did] not deserve the benefits of protective measures that a preliminary injunction afford"); Stewart v. Verano, 2015 WL 1636124, at *2 (M.D. Pa. Apr. 8, 2015) ("In sum, a federal district court lacks jurisdiction over claims raised in a motion for injunctive relief where those matters are wholly unrelated to the underlying complaint.").
D. Leave to Amend
The Third Circuit has instructed that if a civil rights complaint is vulnerable to dismissal for failure to state a claim, the Court should permit a curative amendment, unless an amendment would be inequitable or futile. Grayson v. Mayview State Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 108 (3d Cir. 2002). This instruction is equally applicable to pro se litigants and those represented by counsel. Alston v. Parker, 363 F.3d 229, 235 (3d Cir. 2004).
In the instant case, Plaintiff's claims are plainly barred by Heck v. Humphrey. As such, any attempt at amendment would be futile. See, e.g., Bressi v. Gembic, 2018 WL 3596859, at *7 (M.D. Pa. July 2, 2018) (denying leave to amend claims barred by Heck because such claims "clearly and universally lack merit and are legally frivolous"). It is recommended that this action be dismissed without further opportunity to amend.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, it is respectfully recommended that Defendants' Motions to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 32, 35, 37) be granted, with prejudice. It is further recommended that Plaintiff's Motion to add another defendant (ECF No. 31) and Motion for Preliminary Injunction (ECF No. 52) each be denied. Finally, it is recommended that no further opportunity to amend be provided.
In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 72, the parties must seek review by the district court by filing Objections to the Report and Recommendation within fourteen (14) days of the filing of this Report and Recommendation. Any party opposing the objections shall have fourteen (14) days from the date of service of Objections to respond thereto. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2). Failure to file timely objections may constitute a waiver of appellate rights. See Brightwell v. Lehman, 637 F.3d 187, 194 n.7 (3d Cir. 2011); Nara v. Frank, 488 F.3d 187 (3d Cir. 2007).
/s/ Richard A. Lanzillo
RICHARD A. LANZILLO
United States Magistrate Judge Dated: November 2, 2018