(PC) Dalke v. Sacramento Corrections

District Court, E.D. California·Decided November 29, 2023·No. 2:22-cv-01842·Unknown

Opinion

JOSHUA JASON DALKE, No. 2:22-cv-1842 DAD AC P Plaintiff, v. ORDER AND FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS SACRAMENTO CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants. Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding pro se. Currently before the court are plaintiff’s first amended complaint and motion for preliminary injunction. ECF Nos. 26, 28. Plaintiff has also filed a notice of voluntary dismissal that was immediately followed by a notice of withdrawal of the voluntary dismissal. ECF Nos. 35, 36. I. Notice of Voluntary Dismissal and Withdrawal On November 20, 2023, the court received plaintiff’s notice of voluntary dismissal. ECF No. 35. Two days later, the court received plaintiff’s notice that he wanted to continue the case. ECF No. 36. In light of plaintiff’s notice that he wants to continue the case, the notice of voluntary dismissal will be disregarded. Plaintiff is cautioned that he should not submit a notice of voluntary dismissal unless he is serious about dismissing his case. Once this case is closed, it is unlikely to be re-opened just because plaintiff has changed his mind about dismissal. //// II. Statutory Screening of Prisoner Complaints The court is required to screen complaints brought by prisoners seeking relief against “a governmental entity or officer or employee of a governmental entity.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). The court must dismiss a complaint or portion thereof if the prisoner has raised claims that are “frivolous, malicious, or fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,” or that “seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b). A claim “is [legally] frivolous where it lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact.” Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989); Franklin v. Murphy, 745 F.2d 1221, 1227-28 (9th Cir. 1984). “[A] judge may dismiss . . . claims which are ‘based on indisputably meritless legal theories’ or whose ‘factual contentions are clearly baseless.’” Jackson v. Arizona, 885 F.2d 639, 640 (9th Cir. 1989) (quoting Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 327), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th Cir. 2000). The critical inquiry is whether a constitutional claim, however inartfully pleaded, has an arguable legal and factual basis. Franklin, 745 F.2d at 1227-28 (citations omitted). “Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,’ in order to ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (alteration in original) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). “Failure to state a claim under § 1915A incorporates the familiar standard applied in the context of failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).” Wilhelm v. Rotman, 680 F.3d 1113, 1121 (9th Cir. 2012) (citations omitted). In order to survive dismissal for failure to state a claim, a complaint must contain more than “a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action;” it must contain factual allegations sufficient “to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citations omitted). “[T]he pleading must contain something more . . . than . . . a statement of facts that merely creates a suspicion [of] a legally cognizable right of action.” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting 5 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216 (3d ed. 2004)). //// “[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 Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). “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). In reviewing a complaint under this standard, the court must accept as true the allegations of the complaint in question, Hosp. Bldg. Co. v. Trs. of the Rex Hosp., 425 U.S. 738, 740 (1976) (citation omitted), as well as construe the pleading in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and resolve all doubts in the plaintiff’s favor, Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411, 421 (1969) (citations omitted). III. First Amended Complaint Plaintiff alleges that defendants Hyman, Ghosoph, McNair, Adams, and Moseley violated his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. ECF No. 26. He asserts that Hyman placed an “R” suffix on his file—indicating sex offender status—without proper documentation and that it contributed to plaintiff being denied parole and has led to him being assaulted by other inmates. Id. at 3, 8-9. Ghosoph labeled plaintiff as a deviant sexual predator based on false information, which also caused plaintiff to be denied parole. Id. at 4. She also accused him of lying when the information he provided her was different from that in his records. Id. Plaintiff also alleges that he was denied parole based on charges of attempted escape with a deadly weapon, even though he was never convicted, and that his conviction for sexual misconduct was used against him during classification even though it does not require him to register as a sex offender. Id. at 5. Adams incorrectly documented that plaintiff was required to register as a sex offender, and it was Adams and McNair’s responsibility to ensure the information in his file was accurate. Id. IV. Failure to State a Claim A. “R” Suffix Addition Classifying an inmate as a sex offender implicates a protected liberty interest when the “stigmatizing consequences” of being labeled a sex offender are coupled with some form of mandatory behavior modification. Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818, 830 (9th Cir. 1997) (“[T]he stigmatizing consequences of the attachment of the ‘sex offender’ label coupled with the subjection of the targeted inmate to a mandatory treatment program whose successful completion is a precondition for parole eligibility create the kind of deprivations of liberty that require procedural protections.”). Where an inmate has been previously convicted of a sex offense after formal criminal proceedings, he “has received the minimum protections required by due process” and “[p]rison officials need do no more than notify such an inmate that he has been classified as a sex offender because of his prior conviction for a sex crime.” Id. at 831. However, when an inmate “has never been convicted of a sex offense and has never had an opportunity to formally challenge the imposition of the ‘sex offender’ label in an adversarial setting,” he is entitled to the same procedural protections outlined in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974). Neal, 131 F.3d at 830-31. In other words, he is entitled to

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