John Whatley v. Frank Coffin

496 F. App'x 414
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit·Decided November 7, 2012·No. 11-41151·Unpublished·Cited by 18 cases

Opinion

PER CURIAM: *

John M. Whatley, Texas prisoner # 1656081, appeals the district court’s dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint against Beaumont Chief of Police Frank Coffin, Beaumont Police Department Officers Raymond Shearer and Jeffrey Hancock, and the City of Beaumont. He alleged that Officers Shearer and Hancock used excessive force when they shot him in the hand during the course of his arrest for burglary of a building and that Chief Coffin failed to adequately supervise and train the officers on the use of deadly force.

State court documents demonstrate that as a result of the incident in question, Whatley was indicted on two counts of aggravated assault of a public servant in violation of Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.02(a)(2) and (b)(2)(B). The indictments alleged that Whatley intentionally and knowingly threatened Officers Shearer and Hancock with imminent bodily injury by using his truck, a deadly weapon that in the manner of its use and attempted use was capable of causing serious body injury and death. Pursuant to a plea bargain, Whatley pleaded guilty to two counts of assault of a public servant in violation of Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.01(a)(2) and (b)(1), which is a third degree felony and a lesser included offense of aggravated assault of a public servant. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of ten years of imprisonment.

The district court dismissed Whatley’s complaint without prejudice for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state law claims. Specifically, the district court determined that Whatley’s § 1983 claims were barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), because a judgment in his favor would imply that his convictions for assault of a public servant were invalid.

Whatley contends that the district court failed to provide him with adequate fairness when it sua sponte dismissed his complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A district court may sua sponte dismiss a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) “as long as the procedure employed is fair.” Bazrowx v. Scott, 136 F.3d 1053, 1054 (5th Cir.1998) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “We have ... suggested that fairness in this context requires both notice of the court’s intention and an opportunity to respond.” Carroll v. Fort James Corp., 470 F.3d 1171, 1177 (5th Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

*416 The record reflects that Whatley was notified of the Heck-bar issue and afforded multiple opportunities to contest a dismissal on that ground. Although the district court initially adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation without considering Whatley’s objections, the court granted Whatley’s motion for reconsideration in order to consider those objections. Further, although the magistrate judge initially determined that Whatley’s allegations stated a cause of action, this determination was made before the defendants had filed their answers alleging that Whatley’s suit was barred by Heck because he had been convicted of assault of a public servant as a result of the incident in question. Accordingly, Whatley has not shown that the district court failed to provide him with adequate fairness when it sua sponte dismissed his complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). See Bazrowx, 136 F.3d at 1054.

Whatley also contends that his § 1983 claims are not barred by Heck, asserting that he was not attacking the legality of his convictions for the lesser included offense of assault of a public servant and that a judgment in his favor would not necessarily imply the invalidity of those convictions. He argues that because the indictments alleged assaults by threat, the State abandoned the deadly weapon findings, and he pleaded guilty to two counts of the “lesser included offense of assault of a public servant,” his convictions were for “attempted threat” pursuant to § 22.01(a)(2), Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 37.09(4), and Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 15.01(d). According to Whatley, the facts underlying his excessive force claims were not related to or inconsistent with those necessary to sustain these convictions. Specifically, he notes that as part of his plea bargain, the State conceded that he did not use his truck as a weapon. Without such a finding, Whatley speculates that his convictions were based on the fact that the officers felt threatened by his long criminal history and his earlier burglary of a convenience store. He asserts that these facts were insufficient to justify the officers’ use of deadly force.

We review the dismissal of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. Amacker v. Renaissance Asset Mgmt. LLC, 657 F.3d 252, 254 (5th Cir.2011). The complaint must “allege sufficient facts that, taken as true, state a claim that is plausible on its face.” Id. Although we accept all well-pleaded facts as true and view those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Gonzalez v. Kay, 577 F.3d 600, 603 (5th Cir.2009), we do not “accept as true con-elusory allegations, unwarranted factual inferences, or legal conclusions,” Plotkin v. IP Axess Inc., 407 F.3d 690, 696 (5th Cir.2005). Further, we may refer to matters of public record when determining whether a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal is warranted. Cinel v. Connick, 15 F.3d 1338, 1343 n. 6 (5th Cir.1994).

In Heck, the Supreme Court held that a § 1983 claim that would necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction is not cognizable until the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction “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.” 512 U.S. at 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364, quote at 487. We have applied Heck

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John Whatley v. Frank Coffin, 496 F. App'x 414 (5th Cir. 2012).

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