Dillard v. Ada County Jail

CourtDistrict Court, D. Idaho
DecidedDecember 21, 2023
Docket1:23-cv-00337
StatusUnknown

This text of Dillard v. Ada County Jail (Dillard v. Ada County Jail) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Idaho primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dillard v. Ada County Jail, (D. Idaho 2023).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO JONATHAN DILLARD, Case No. 1:23-cv-00337-AKB Plaintiff, INITIAL REVIEW ORDER v. BY SCREENING JUDGE

ADA COUNTY JAIL,

Defendant.

The Clerk of Court conditionally filed Plaintiff Jonathan Dillard’s Amended Complaint because of his status as a prisoner and request to proceed in forma pauperis. (Dkts. 1, 10). A “conditional filing” means that Plaintiff must obtain authorization from the Court to proceed. All prisoner and pauper complaints must be screened by the Court to determine whether summary dismissal is appropriate. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915 & 1915A. The Court must dismiss claims that are frivolous or malicious, fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or seek monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). Upon review of Plaintiff’s filings, the Court has determined that he must file an amended complaint to correct the deficiencies identified in this Order. REVIEW OF COMPLAINT 1. Standard of Law for Screening Complaints A complaint must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). This means “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff “pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged,” id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556), or provides sufficient facts “to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of” the defendant’s wrongdoing. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556. A pleading that offers merely “labels and conclusions” or “a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555).

2. Factual Allegations Plaintiff is a federal prisoner who complains that his temporary conditions of confinement during a federal hold at the Ada County Jail were unconstitutional. He was housed there in May 2023, during probation/supervised release revocation proceedings. He also asserts that the federal court’s probation revocation process violated his due process rights. His Complaint is nearly illegible and does not contain sufficient background facts to support his claims. He will be given leave to file an amended complaint. The Court takes judicial notice of the probation revocation proceedings and orders entered in Plaintiff’s federal criminal case, No. 1:15-cr-00170-DCN, United States v. Dillard (“Case 170”).1 On August 21, 2023, Chief United States District Judge David C. Nye entered a Judgment

for Revocation of Probation or Supervised Release. (See Case 170, Dkt. 187). Petitioner was sentenced to six months of imprisonment. (Id.) Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal. The United States Court of Appeals construed Plaintiff’s subsequent “Motion to Dismiss Both Attorney and Appeal has been Filed [sic]” as a voluntarily dismissal motion. Plaintiff recently filed a “Subsequent

1 Federal Rule of Evidence 201 provides that a Court may take judicial notice of an adjudicative fact which is “not subject to reasonable dispute.” The advisory committee’s notes to Rule 201 clarify that adjudicative facts are “simply the facts of the particular case.” In addition, “courts routinely take judicial notice of documents filed in other courts . . . not for the truth of the matters asserted in the other litigation, but rather to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings.” Kramer v. Time Warner, Inc., 937 F.2d 767, 774 (2d Cir. 1991). Notice of Appeal” in that case, stating it was not his intention to dismiss his appeal. (See Case 170, Dkts. 205, 210, 214). 3. Proper Defendants for § 1983 Actions Plaintiff brings some of his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the civil rights statute. To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege a violation of rights protected by the Constitution or

created by federal statute proximately caused by conduct of a person acting under color of state law. Crumpton v. Gates, 947 F.2d 1418, 1420 (9th Cir. 1991). Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is an implementing statute that makes it possible to bring a cause of action under the Amendments to the United States Constitution. The only named Defendant in this action is the Ada County Jail. To bring a § 1983 claim against a municipality (county or other local governmental entity), a plaintiff must allege that the execution of an official policy or unofficial custom inflicted the injury of which the plaintiff complains. Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Serv. of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). That is, “a municipality [or entity] can be found liable under § 1983 only where the municipality [or entity]

itself causes the constitutional violation at issue.” City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385 (1989). Under Monell, requisite elements of a § 1983 claim against a municipality are the following: (1) the plaintiff was deprived of a constitutional right; (2) the municipality had a policy or custom; (3) the policy or custom amounted to deliberate indifference to the plaintiff’s constitutional right; and (4) the policy or custom was the moving force behind the constitutional violation. See Mabe v. San Bernardino County, Dep't of Pub. Soc. Servs., 237 F.3d 1101, 1110-11 (9th Cir. 2001). All policy-based claims must meet the pleading standards clarified by Twombly and Iqbal, supra. That is, mere “formulaic recitation of a cause of action’s elements” without supporting facts is insufficient. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. Plaintiff has provided insufficient facts to show that jail policies or customs were the moving force behind his claims. He will be given leave to add those facts or omit the Ada County Jail as a Defendant. When a claimant seeks monetary damages, other proper defendants in a § 1983

claim can include state actors in their individual/personal capacity who personally participated in the alleged constitutional violations. 4. Claims Challenging Federal Criminal Conviction Some of Plaintiff’s claims stem from his federal criminal conviction. He alleges that his criminal plea agreement is fraudulent or forged. (Dkt. 1-1, p. 6). Plaintiff requests “immediate release and termination of supervision and the next hearings here after to be addressing in past [illegible] and to set an evidentiary hearing to overturn my original conviction.” (Id., p. 15). A convicted felon cannot challenge his criminal conviction in a civil rights action. In Heck v.

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Dillard v. Ada County Jail, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dillard-v-ada-county-jail-idd-2023.