Ashley Georges v. Helen Godby

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: March 24, 2025
• Docket: 24-1884
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

DLD-091 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________

No. 24-1884 ___________

ASHLEY GEORGES, Appellant

v.

HELEN C. GODBY; YVONNE SMITH SEGARS

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (D.C. Civil Action No. 2:20-cv-13561) District Judge: Honorable Evelyn Padin ____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) or Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6 February 27, 2025 Before: RESTREPO, FREEMAN, and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: March 24, 2025) _________

OPINION* _________

PER CURIAM

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. Appellant Ashley Georges, a state prisoner proceeding pro se and in forma

pauperis, appeals from the District Court’s dismissal of his civil rights complaint. For the

following reasons, we will summarily affirm the District Court’s judgment.

I.

Georges is currently incarcerated at South Woods State Prison, New Jersey, where

he is serving an aggregate term of life imprisonment with a thirty-year period of parole

ineligibility for his convictions for murder and unlawful possession of a firearm. In

September 2020, Georges filed a complaint, later amended in October 2020, under 42

U.S.C. § 1983 alleging interference with his right to access the courts during his post-

conviction relief (PCR) proceedings in state court and related petition for writ of habeas

corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in federal court. The District Court screened the

complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) and dismissed it without prejudice and

with leave to amend. Georges filed a second amended complaint in March 2022 repeating

some of his earlier claims and adding more against various defendants, including state

and county agencies, individual public defenders and prosecutors, and individual New

Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) employees. The District Court dismissed

some of these claims with prejudice and some without, and gave Georges one final

chance to amend his complaint. In September 2023, Georges filed his third amended

complaint alleging § 1983 claims against two public defenders, Helen Godby and

Yvonne Segars. Georges stated that Godby, an attorney in the New Jersey Office of the

2 Public Defender’s (NJOPD) Intake Unit, misinformed him about the status of his appeal

and filed an untimely notice of appeal (NOA) in his PCR proceedings. This delay caused

the expiration of the one-year statute of limitations on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition. He

also stated that Segars, as the then-Supervisor of the NJOPD, created a policy or custom

allowing or encouraging the untimely filing of indigent defendants’ PCR appeals, and/or

failed to supervise or train NJOPD employees to prevent these untimely filings.

The District Court dismissed the complaint with prejudice for failure to state a

claim under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and without leave to amend. Georges timely filed his

notice of appeal.

II.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and exercise plenary review

over the District Court’s sua sponte dismissal of Georges’ claims under § 1915(e)(2).

See Dooley v. Wetzel, 957 F.3d 366, 373 (3d Cir. 2020). To survive dismissal, a

complaint must set out “sufficient factual matter” to show that its claims are facially

plausible. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). We accept all factual

allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the

plaintiff, Fleisher v. Standard Ins. Co., 679 F.3d 116, 120 (3d Cir. 2012), and we construe

Georges’ filings liberally, see Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam).

We may summarily affirm “on any basis supported by the record” if the appeal fails to

3 present a substantial question. See Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011)

(per curiam); 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; I.O.P. 10.6.

III.

We first review the previously filed claims, dismissed with prejudice,1 against the

following defendants: the NJOPD, the New Jersey Supreme Court (NJSC), the NJDOC,

the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office (ECPO), ECPO attorneys Thomas McTigue and

Barbara Rosenkrans, and NJOPD attorneys Susan Bohrod and Joan Buckley.

The Eleventh Amendment immunizes state agencies from suit in federal court. See

Est. of Lagano v. Bergen Cnty. Prosecutor’s Off., 769 F.3d 850, 857 (3d Cir. 2014). The

NJOPD, NJSC, and NJDOC are New Jersey state agencies and thus immune from

Georges’ claims.

To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that a “person” acting under

color of state law deprived him of rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the

Constitution or laws of the United States. See id. at 854. A local government body, such

as a county prosecutor’s office, is not a person for § 1983 purposes if it is acting as an

“arm of the [s]tate.” Id. “[W]hen [New Jersey] county prosecutors engage in classic law

1 In Georges’ third amended complaint, he named only two defendants, Godby and Segars. The claims against other defendants that the District Court dismissed in prior orders with prejudice are preserved for our review. See U.S. ex rel. Atkinson v. PA. Shipbuilding Co., 473 F.3d 506, 516 (3d Cir. 2007). But the claims that were dismissed without prejudice are not. See id. at 517-18.

4 enforcement and investigative functions, they act as officers of the State.” Id. at 855

(second alteration in original) (quoting Coleman v. Kaye, 87 F.3d 1491, 1505 (3d Cir.

1996)). Georges’ claims against the ECPO are based on its investigative and

prosecutorial actions, and it therefore cannot be considered a person for § 1983 purposes.

Individual prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from § 1983 claims arising from

their activities which are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal

process.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 430 (1976). This includes withholding

exculpatory evidence, even during post-conviction proceedings if the prosecutor

continues in the role of an advocate, see Yarris v. Cnty. of Del., 465 F.3d 129, 137 (3d

Cir. 2006), as well as malicious prosecution, see Odd v. Malone, 538 F.3d 202, 208 (3d

Cir. 2008) (“[I]n initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State’s case, the prosecutor

is immune from a civil suit for damages under § 1983.”) (quoting Imbler, 424 U.S. at

431). Georges’ claims against ECPO attorney Thomas McTigue2 include malicious

prosecution as well as concealing exculpatory evidence during trial. Georges also states

that ECPO attorney Barbara Rosenkrans concealed exculpatory evidence during his PCR

and habeas proceedings. Both McTigue and Rosenkrans have absolute immunity from

these claims.

2 We address only those claims against McTigue which the District Court dismissed with prejudice in its July 7, 2023 opinion.

5 Finally, it is well established that “a public defender does not act under color of

state law [for § 1983 purposes] when performing a lawyer’s traditional functions as

counsel to a defendant in a criminal proceeding.” Polk Cnty. v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312,

325 (1981). Georges’ claims against Susan Bohrod and Joan Buckley arise out of their

actions and omissions as litigators during Georges’ PCR and PCR appeal proceedings,

respectively, and thus they did not act under color of law for § 1983 purposes.

We therefore affirm the District Court’s dismissal of the foregoing claims.

IV.

We turn now to the claims in Georges’ third and final amended complaint.

Georges alleges that Godby told him that the NOA for his PCR proceedings was timely

filed when it had not actually been filed yet, nor would it be filed for many more months.

During that time, Georges’ one-year statute of limitations under AEDPA eventually ran

out. Filing (or not filing) an NOA is within a lawyer’s traditional functions, as is

communicating about it with a client. Though it “may be” possible for a public defender

to act under color of law for § 1983 purposes “while performing certain administrative

and possibly investigative functions,” id. at 325, Godby’s actions do not fall within this

narrow exception.

Even assuming Segars’ actions could be considered administrative, cf. Powell v.

Davis, 415 F.3d 722, 727-28 (7th Cir. 2005) (“the public defender’s case management

priorities are not the type of administrative measures, like hiring and budgetary decisions,

6 that would make the office a state actor under the administrative-action exception for

public defenders identified in Polk County”), Georges has nevertheless failed to meet the

relevant pleading standard. See Ashcroft, 556 U.S. at 678. He makes bare assertions that

Segars created a policy or custom of filing untimely NOAs and/or failed to train or

supervise NJOPD attorneys to prevent the untimely filings. He has not provided any facts

to support these conclusions other than Godby’s failure to timely file his NOA. Even

construed liberally and in the light most favorable to Georges, this is not enough to make

claims of an office-wide policy nor failure to train or supervise facially plausible. See,

e.g., Santiago v. Warminster Twp., 629 F.3d 121, 133 (3d Cir. 2010).

We therefore affirm the District Court’s dismissal of these claims as well.

Finally, considering the foregoing, the District Court did not abuse its discretion or

otherwise err in dismissing the complaint without leave to amend after determining

that further amendment would have been futile. See Grayson v. Mayview State Hosp.,

293 F.3d 103, 108 (3d Cir. 2002).

Because this appeal does not present a substantial question, we will summarily

affirm the judgment of the District Court. See 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; I.O.P. 10.6.