Johnson v. Blake et al

Filing 15

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff's motion for appointment of counsel. Doc. # 14 is DENIED without prejudice. Signed by District Judge John A. Ross on 9/26/12. (ARL)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
JOSEPH M. JOHNSON,
Plaintiff,
v.
ALAN BLAKE, et al.,
Defendants.

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No. 4:12CV510 JAR

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on plaintiff’s motion for appointment of counsel.
The motion will be denied at this time.
Plaintiff is a civil detainee at Fulton State Hospital proceeding in this action pro
se. He brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging violations of his civil
rights when he was detained at the Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment
Services in Farmington, Missouri (“SORTS”). He claims when he was first housed
at SORTS in December of 2009, he was sexually assaulted by another civil detainee,
and he reported the assault and the matter was thoroughly investigated. He asserts that
in December of 2011, a “committee” moved plaintiff back to the same housing unit
as his attacker despite their knowledge of the prior rape. Plaintiff states that he was
again subjected to sexual assault by this same individual on numerous occasions
throughout the year. Plaintiff is currently pursuing a § 1983 action against several

members of the “committee” who moved him back into the housing unit, asserting that
the individual members failed to protect him from harm in violation of the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.
There is no constitutional or statutory right to appointed counsel in civil cases.
Nelson v. Redfield Lithograph Printing, 728 F.2d 1003, 1004 (8th Cir. 1984). In
determining whether to appoint counsel, the Court considers several factors, including
(1) whether the plaintiff has presented non-frivolous allegations supporting his or her
prayer for relief; (2) whether the plaintiff will substantially benefit from the
appointment of counsel; (3) whether there is a need to further investigate and present
the facts related to the plaintiff’s allegations; and (4) whether the factual and legal
issues presented by the action are complex. See Johnson v. Williams, 788 F.2d 1319,
1322-23 (8th Cir. 1986); Nelson, 728 F.2d at 1005.
Although plaintiff states that he lacks the knowledge to represent himself in this
matter, his prior pleadings before this Court have been articulate and straightforward.
Although the subject matter in plaintiff’s complaint is serious, it is unclear at this
juncture how much discovery plaintiff will have to engage in to present his facts in
relation to his allegations.
The Eighth Amendment requires officials to “provide humane conditions of

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confinement” by taking reasonable steps to protect inmates convicted of crimes from
assault by other inmates. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994). Plaintiff’s
custodians had a comparable duty to protect plaintiff as a civil detainee, although this
duty arose under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See
Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 321-22 (1982); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520,
536 (1979). To prove an unconstitutional failure to protect from harm, plaintiff must
show (1) an “objectively, sufficiently serious” deprivation, meaning that he was
detained under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm, Farmer, 511 U.S.
at 834 (internal quotation omitted), and (2) that the defendant was deliberately
indifferent to the substantial risk of serious harm. Id. The second requirement is a
subjective test; the defendant must be “aware of facts from which the inference could
be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the
inference.” Id. at 837.
The legal issues in this case are relatively straightforward, and if, as plaintiff
alleges in his complaint, there was an investigation into plaintiff’s allegations of
sexual assault in 2009 at SORTS, then plaintiff will not have to engage in a vast
amount of discovery in this case.
After considering these factors, the Court finds that the appointment of counsel
is not warranted at this time. If at some later point in time it appears that counsel is
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warranted, plaintiff may motion the Court for counsel at that time and provide a list
of specific reasons why counsel is needed.
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff’s motion for appointment of counsel
[Doc. #14] is DENIED without prejudice.
Dated this 26th day of September, 2012.

JOHN A. ROSS
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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