Randale Joseph Thomas v. Jerry Sheridan, et al.

CourtDistrict Court, D. Arizona
DecidedDecember 8, 2025
Docket2:25-cv-03689
StatusUnknown

This text of Randale Joseph Thomas v. Jerry Sheridan, et al. (Randale Joseph Thomas v. Jerry Sheridan, et al.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Randale Joseph Thomas v. Jerry Sheridan, et al., (D. Ariz. 2025).

Opinion

1 KM 2 WO 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 8 9 Randale Joseph Thomas, No. CV-25-03689-PHX-JAT (JZB) 10 Plaintiff, 11 v. ORDER 12 Jerry Sheridan, et al., 13 Defendants.

15 Self-represented Plaintiff Randale Joseph Thomas, who is confined in a Maricopa 16 County Jail, has filed a civil rights Complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Doc. 1) and 17 an Application to Proceed In Forma Pauperis (Doc. 2). The Court will dismiss the 18 Complaint with leave to amend. 19 I. Application to Proceed In Forma Pauperis and Filing Fee 20 The Court will grant Plaintiff’s Application to Proceed In Forma Pauperis. 28 21 U.S.C. § 1915(a). Plaintiff must pay the statutory filing fee of $350.00. 28 U.S.C. 22 § 1915(b)(1). The Court will assess an initial partial filing fee of $69.17. The remainder 23 of the fee will be collected monthly in payments of 20% of the previous month’s income 24 credited to Plaintiff’s trust account each time the amount in the account exceeds $10.00. 25 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2). The Court will enter a separate Order requiring the appropriate 26 government agency to collect and forward the fees according to the statutory formula. 27 . . . . 28 . . . . 1 II. Statutory Screening of Prisoner Complaints 2 The Court is required to screen complaints brought by prisoners seeking relief 3 against a governmental entity or an officer or an employee of a governmental entity. 28 4 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). The Court must dismiss a complaint or portion thereof if a plaintiff 5 has raised claims that are legally frivolous or malicious, fail to state a claim upon which 6 relief may be granted, or seek monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such 7 relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1)–(2). 8 A pleading must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the 9 pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) (emphasis added). While Rule 8 does 10 not demand detailed factual allegations, “it demands more than an unadorned, the- 11 defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 12 (2009). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere 13 conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. 14 “[A] complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a 15 claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Id. (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 16 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim is plausible “when the plaintiff pleads factual content 17 that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the 18 misconduct alleged.” Id. “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for 19 relief [is] . . . a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial 20 experience and common sense.” Id. at 679. Thus, although a plaintiff’s specific factual 21 allegations may be consistent with a constitutional claim, a court must assess whether there 22 are other “more likely explanations” for a defendant’s conduct. Id. at 681. 23 But as the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has instructed, courts 24 must “continue to construe [self-represented litigant’s] filings liberally.” Hebbe v. Pliler, 25 627 F.3d 338, 342 (9th Cir. 2010). A “complaint [filed by a self-represented prisoner] 26 ‘must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.’” Id. 27 (quoting Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam)). 28 1 If the Court determines that a pleading could be cured by the allegation of other 2 facts, a self-represented litigant is entitled to an opportunity to amend a complaint before 3 dismissal of the action. See Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1127-29 (9th Cir. 2000) (en 4 banc). The Court will dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint for failure to state a claim, but because 5 it may possibly be amended to state a claim, the Court will dismiss it with leave to amend. 6 III. Complaint 7 Plaintiff names Defendants Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, Detention 8 Officer Unknown Mackey, and Inmate Legal Services Officer Purdy in his one-count 9 Complaint. Plaintiff seeks monetary damages. 10 Plaintiff alleges Defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights when they 11 denied him access to the courts. On November 9, 2024, Plaintiff gave Defendant Mackey 12 a “motion for sanction disclosure” to be submitted to Inmate Legal Services. Defendant 13 Mackey counted the pages in the motion, signed the Inmate Legal Request, and gave 14 Plaintiff the yellow copy of the request. A few days later, Inmate Legal Services sent the 15 motion back to Plaintiff and explained they could not file the motion because pages were 16 missing. Plaintiff wrote to Inmate Legal Services and said all of the pages were included 17 and Defendant Mackey had counted them and “signed off.” Inmate Legal Services 18 responded, “that was all they got and pages were missing.” Plaintiff filed a grievance and 19 asked for the missing pages. He received replies saying, “they didn’t know w[h]ere [his] 20 missing pages [were] and that they couldn’t do [anything].” A week before this incident, 21 Plaintiff filed a notice with the state court stating that during a search, the Special Response 22 Team, “Phoenix Police, MCSO Detention Officers, and Jail intelligence declared they were 23 inspecting . . . cells for contraband but ended up taking legal documents.” 24 Plaintiff alleges Defendant Sheridan “is the final decision and policy maker for the 25 Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office” and his “failure to properly train and supervise his 26 employees resulted in a violation of [Plaintiff’s] constitutional rights through their 27 unprofessional mishandling and misplacing [of Plaintiff’s] legal documents.” He claims 28 1 Defendant Sheridan’s employees “did not follow any type of policy or procedures” 2 regarding collection and delivery of inmates’ legal documents for filing. 3 As his injury, Plaintiff states that “due to the fact that [his] motion wasn’t filed they 4 deprived [him] of [his] due process to be able to have access to the discovery [he] 5 requested.” 6 IV. Failure to State a Claim 7 A. Access to Courts 8 The right of meaningful access to the courts prohibits officials from actively 9 interfering with inmates’ attempts to prepare or file legal documents. Lewis v. Casey, 518 10 U.S. 343, 350 (1996). The right of access to the courts is only a right to bring petitions or 11 complaints to federal court and not a right to discover such claims or even to litigate them 12 effectively once filed with a court. Id. at 354. The right “guarantees no particular 13 methodology but rather the conferral of a capability–the capability of bringing 14 contemplated challenges to sentences or conditions of confinement before the courts.” Id. 15 at 356.

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Bluebook (online)
Randale Joseph Thomas v. Jerry Sheridan, et al., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/randale-joseph-thomas-v-jerry-sheridan-et-al-azd-2025.