Opinion
Case No. 03-CV-70521-DT
July 18, 2003
OPINION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
Plaintiff Rick R. Manning, filed a civil rights complait pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, naming various judges and Michigan Department of Corrections ("MDOC") officials as Deffendants. The court summarily dismissed that complaint and Plaintiff has filed a motion for reconsideration.
Plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief ordering that his post-conviction challenges to his convictions not be subject to the procedural default and/or successive petition bars which the judicial Defendants ruled applied to Plaintiff's state and federal post-conviction challenges to his convictions. Plaintiff also sought monetary damages from the MDOC Defendants, the appointment of counsel, and other relief.
The court dismissed the complaint finding that it simply was not a violation of Plaintiff's constitutional rights for the state and/or federal courts to dismiss and/or deny his collateral attack(s) on his convictions on procedural grounds where he had procedurally defaulted his claims and/or filed successive applications not permitted by law. The court also noted that it had no authority or jurisdiction to review or overturn the ruling(s) of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals finding that Plaintiff's habeas applications were barred by the doctrine of procedural default and/or the rule against successive petitions.
As for the MDOC Defendants, the court found that Plaintiff failed to show that any deficiency in the legal materials available to him caused him actual injury.
Additionally, the court found that Plaintiff's complaint was, in essence, an attack on the constitutionality of his convictions. Consequently, it was not cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Preiser v. Rodliguez, 411 U.S. 475, 488-90 (1973) (habeas corpus proceeding, not § 1983, is the appropriate remedy for a state prisoner to attack the validity of the fact of conviction or length of his sentence). Further, a state prisoner does not have a cognizable claim under § 1983 if a ruling on his claim would necessarily render his sentence invalid, unless his conviction has been reversed on direct appeal, declared invalid by a state tribunal, or has been questioned by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).
Local Rule 7.1(h) allows a party to file a motion for reconsideration. E.D. Mich. LR 7.1(h). However, a motion for reconsideration which presents the same issues already ruled upon by the court, either expressly or by reasonable implication, will not be granted. Czajkowski v. Tindall Associates, P.C., 967 F. Supp. 951, 952 (E.D. Mich. 1997). The movant shall not only demonstrate a palpable defect by which the court and the parties have been misled, but also show that a different disposition of the case must result from a correction of any such defect. A palpable defect is a defect that is obvious, clear, unmistakable, manifest, or plain. Witzke v. Hiller, 972 F. Supp. 426, 427 (E.D. Mich. 1997)
The standard for granting a motion to alter or amend judgment under Federal Rules of Civil procedure 59(e) is high. "A motion for reconsideration is not to be used as a means to reargue matters already argued and dispose of." Waye v. First Citizen's Nat'l Bank, 846 F. Supp. 310, 314 n. 3 (M.D. Pa.), aff'd 31 F.3d 1175 (3d Cir. 1994), or as an attempt to relitigate a "point of disagreement between the Court and the litigant." Id. The motion may only be granted if (1) there has been an intervening change in controlling law; (2) new evidence, which was not available, has become available; or (3) it is necessary to correct a clear or plain error of law or to prevent a manifest injustice. Bass v. Wainwright, 675 F.2d 1204 (11th Cir. 1982); see also Harsen v. Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d 906, 909 (3d Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1171 (1986)
Plaintiff's motion for reconsideration has not pointed to any palpable defect in the court's ruling. Rather, Plaintiff simply reiterates his attacks on his convictions and the judicial rulings which upheld them. Plaintiff's complaint and motion for reconsideration remain an improper attempt to use a civil rights complaint to make an end run around the habeas corpus statute which he has already utilized unsuccessfully to collaterally challenge his convictions. The fact that Plaintiff was unsuccessful in his attempts to overturn his convictions through state appeals, state post-conviction challenges, and/or federal habeas corpus does not entitle him to relitigate his claims in a federal civil rights action. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff's "Motion for Reconsideration" is DENIED.