Summary
In Fritz v. Brandon, 78 Penn. St. 342, 351, Chief Justice Agnew says: "When one person is owner of all the warrants, they may be surveyed together in a single block by exterior lines, leaving the interior lines to be settled by the owner himself.
Summary of this case from Clement v. PackerOpinion
Case No. 2:04-CV-361 TS.
June 22, 2004
ORDER
Plaintiff, Diane Moneta Fritz, filed a pro se civil rights complaint and proceeds in forma pauperis. See 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 2003); 28 id. § 1915(b) (Supp. 2003). Plaintiff names these defendants: Judge Keith Stoney and public defenders Brandon Larson and Adam Nash. Plaintiff asserts the judge was biased in handling her domestic violence trial and the public defenders provided her ineffective assistance of counsel by denying her rights to a jury trial and to appeal and by combining three different domestic violence cases into one. For these alleged infringements, Plaintiff requests monetary damages.
The Court now screens these claims. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 1915A. Under § 1915A, the Court shall dismiss a complaint or any portion of a complaint that "fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted." See id. "Dismissal of a pro se complaint for failure to state a claim is proper only where it is obvious that the plaintiff cannot prevail on the facts [s]he has alleged and it would be futile to give h[er] an opportunity to amend."Perkins v. Kan. Dep't of Corr., 165 F.3d 803, 806 (10th Cir. 1999). To determine whether to dismiss, the Court "must accept the allegations of the complaint as true and . . . must construe those allegations, and any reasonable inferences that might be drawn from them, in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Id. Moreover, the allegations of a pro se complaint must be liberally construed. Id.
The Supreme Court has stated,
"to recover damages for 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 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 determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus."Reed v. McKune, 298 F.3d 946, 953 (10th Cir. 2002) (quotingHeck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 2372 (1994) (footnote omitted)). Inasmuch as a decision for Plaintiff would "`necessarily imply the invalidity of h[er] conviction or sentence,' and because [she] has not `demonstrate[d] that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated,' [the Court] conclude[s] that h[er] claim for money damages is likewise not cognizable under § 1983." Id. at 953-54 (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 487).
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff's claims are dismissed because she has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 1915(e)(2)(B) (West Supp. 2003).