McNeil v. Gittere

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: April 25, 2025
• Docket: 3:24-cv-00188
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA

3 MICHAEL MCNEIL, Case No. 3:24-cv-00188-MMD-CLB 4 Plaintiff, ORDER 5 v.

6 WILLIAM GITTERE, et al.,

7 Defendants.

8 9 Plaintiff files a motion seeking the appointment of counsel. (ECF No. 12). In his 10 motion, Plaintiff requests counsel for the following reasons: (1) he cannot afford counsel; 11 (2) he is located in Virginia; (3) there is limited access to the law library; (4) he has a 12 limited knowledge of the law; (5) he cannot conduct discovery and has requested a jury 13 trial; and (6) his case has merit. (Id. at 13). 14 A litigant does not have a constitutional right to appointed counsel in 42 U.S.C. § 15 1983 civil rights claims. Storseth v. Spellman, 654 F.2d 1349, 1353 (9th Cir. 16 1981). Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1), “[t]he court may request an attorney to 17 represent any person unable to afford counsel.” However, the court will appoint counsel 18 for indigent civil litigants only in “exceptional circumstances.” Palmer v. Valdez, 560 F.3d 19 965, 970 (9th Cir. 2009) (§ 1983 action). “When determining whether ‘exceptional 20 circumstances’ exist, a court must consider ‘the likelihood of success on the merits as 21 well as the ability of the petitioner to articulate his claims pro se in light of the complexity 22 of the legal issues involved.” Id. “Neither of these considerations is dispositive and 23 instead must be viewed together.” Id. 24 In the instant case, the Court does not find exceptional circumstances that warrant 25 the appointment of counsel. The reasons for counsel that Plaintiff submits in his motion 26 are common circumstances that affect many inmate-plaintiffs. See Baker v. Macomber, 27 1|| No. 2:15-CV-00248-TLN-AC, 2020 WL 1182495, at *1 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 12, 2020) (finding 2|| that “[clircumstances common to most prisoners, such as lack of legal education and 3|| limited law library access, do not establish exceptional circumstances that warrant a 4|| request for voluntary assistance of counsel’). Therefore, the Court denies the motion for counsel (ECF No. 12) without prejudice. 6 DATED THIS 25th day of April 2025. 8 UNITED STATES‘MAGISTRATE JUDGE 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28