Jones v. Montgomery et al
Filing
17
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ; the plaintiff is ASSESSED the civil filing fee of $350.00. Because the plaintiff's complaint has failed to pass the screening test, a separate order of dismissal will enter.Signed by District Judge J Ronnie Greer on 11/30/11. c/m(KDO)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
at GREENEVILLE
DANIEL H. JONES, No. 443638
V.
ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, Jr.,
Judge; LYNN BROWN, Judge;
ROBERT KUPP, Judge; RUSSELL
PERKINS, Chancellor; WILLIAM
O. SHULTZ, Chairman, Tennessee
Claims Commission; NANCY C.
HERRON, Claims Comm’r;
STEPHANIE REEVERS, Claims
Comm’r; MARK GWYN, Director,
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation;
and AVIS STONE, Coordinator,
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation,
All in their official and
individual capacity.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
NO. 2:11-CV-47
MEMORANDUM and ORDER
Acting pro se and seeking declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, state
prisoner Daniel H. Jones brings this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
four state judicial officers, three Tennessee Board of Claims commissioners, and two
officials in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation [hereinafter “TBI”]. Plaintiff alleges
that defendants infringed upon his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing
to act on his request to expunge from his records a prior Kentucky sex conviction (and,
while not altogether clear, also a charge of aggravated rape in Sullivan County,
Tennessee, which was subsequently dismissed), despite the fact that he was legally
entitled to the expungement.
I. The Filing Fee
Plaintiff is ASSESSED the civil filing fee of $350.00. The custodian of
plaintiff’s inmate trust account at the institution where he now resides shall submit, as
an initial partial payment, whichever is the greater of: (a) twenty percent (20%) of the
average monthly deposits to plaintiff’s inmate trust account; or (b) twenty percent
(20%) of the average monthly balance in his inmate trust account for the six-month
period preceding the filing of the complaint. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1)(A) and (B).
Thereafter, the custodian shall submit twenty percent (20%) of plaintiff’s
preceding monthly income (or income credited to his trust account for the preceding
month), but only when such monthly income exceeds $10.00, until the full filing fee
of $350.00 has been paid to the Clerk’s Office.1 McGore v. Wrigglesworth, 114 F.3d
1
Send all payments to:
Clerk, USDC
220 West Depot Street, Suite 200
Greeneville, TN 37743
2
601, 607 (6th Cir. 1997), overruled on other grounds by Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199
(2007).
To ensure compliance with the above fee-collection procedure, the Clerk is
DIRECTED to mail a copy of this memorandum and order to the custodian of inmate
accounts at the institution where plaintiff is now confined and to Derrick Schofield,
Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction.
II. Plaintiff’s Allegations
In his complaint, plaintiff makes the allegations which follow. On April 30,
2010, plaintiff asked the Tennessee Claims Commission to expunge from his records
a previously dismissed sex-offense charge and to remove his name from the State’s sex
offenders registry. However, defendant Commissioners Shultz, Herron, and Reevers
denied him an in-person hearing and, without reviewing the merits, dismissed his
claims against TBI defendants Gwyn and Stone for their failure to act in the matter.
Plaintiff has heard nothing regarding his motions to have his case transferred to the
appropriate chancery and/or circuit court.
On October 13, 2010, plaintiff filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the
Sullivan County Criminal Court, seeking to have defendant Judge Robert Montgomery
enforce its order of expungement with respect to the Tennessee charge. Judge
3
Montgomery, in violation of his statutory obligation to act in the matter, dismissed the
petition summarily on the basis of improper venue.
Thereafter, plaintiff sought mandamus relief with respect to this matter in courts
presided over by defendant Judges Lynn Brown and Robert Kupp,2 but neither
defendant has considered plaintiff’s case and neither has sought to have another judge
decide the matter. When (by inference), plaintiff brought his claims to the Davidson
County Chancery Court, defendant Chancellor Russell Perkins dismissed his case
without prejudice, but also without considering the merits of those claims.
Plaintiff would have the Court issue a declaratory judgment finding that
defendants have inflicted upon him cruel and unusual punishments for the above
described actions or failures to act, issue an injunction directing defendants to perform
their duties to attend to the expungement “without delay,” and award him punitive,
actual, and prospective damages.
III. Screening the Complaint
The complaint must now be screened and, if it is frivolous or malicious; fails to
state a claim; or names defendants who are immune, it must be dismissed. 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915A and § 1915(e). In conducting this review, this pro se filing will be liberally
construed and held "to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by
2
Although the Court uses the spelling used by the plaintiff, plaintiff has misspelled Judge Cupp’s
name. The correct spelling is “Cupp.”
4
lawyers." Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). For ease of discussion, the
claims have been divided into categories.
A. Official Capacity Claims
All defendants are sued in their official and individual capacity. An official
capacity lawsuit for damages against a state agency or its employees implicates the
Eleventh Amendment. The Eleventh Amendment states that “[t]he Judicial power of
the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity,
commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another
State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” U.S. Const. amend. XI. This
amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, bars an action for damages in a
federal court against a State, unless Congress has abrogated its sovereign immunity or
the State has expressly waived it. See, e.g., Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 (1890),
overruled on other grounds by statute, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7. The same immunity
applies to an instrumentality of the state, i.e., a state agency, or employees of a state
agency in their official capacity. Regents of the University of California v. Doe, 519
U.S. 425 (1997); Ernst v. Rising, 427 F.3d 351, 358 (6th Cir. 2005).
Congress did not abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity by enacting § 1983,
Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332 (1979), and the State of Tennessee has not waived its
right to sovereign immunity. Gross v. University of Tennessee, 620 F.2d 109, 110 (6th
5
Cir. 1980). See also Tenn. Code Ann. § 20-13-102(a). Accordingly, the state Claims
Commissioners and the TBI employees in their official capacities are entitled to
immunity from damages.
B. Claims against the Judges and the Chancellor
Judges too enjoy immunity from damages and their immunity is absolute for
actions taken within the scope of their judicial duties. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547,
553-54 (1967); Brookings v. Clunk, 389 F.3d 614 (6th Cir. 2004) (“The Supreme Court
has specifically held that state judges are absolutely immune from liability under 42
U.S.C. § 1983.”) Clearly, Judges Montgomery, Brown, and Kupp and Chancellor
Perkins are protected by immunity because each was acting within the scope of his
jurisdiction in making rulings in plaintiff’s cases, dismissing plaintiff’s claims, and in
the management of the court’s docket.
C. Claims of Stigmatization
To the extent plaintiff is contending that he has some kind of constitutionally
protected liberty or property interest in his reputation, his reference to “the undesirable
stigma of having been charged with a [sex] offense, where the [then] prosecution was
abandoned,” see Compl. at 5,7 and 9, fails to state a cognizable § 1983 claim because
the Constitution confers no such an interest. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 711 (1976).
6
D. Collateral Attack
Under the doctrine which evolved from Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S.
413 (1923), and District of Columbia v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983), a district court
lacks jurisdiction to review, modify, or reverse a judicial determination made by a state
court, even if that determination is challenged as unconstitutional. Rooker, 263 U.S.
at 414-16; Feldman, 460 U.S. at 483 n.16. As explained recently by the Supreme
Court, “[t]he Rooker-Feldman doctrine, we hold today, is confined to cases of the kind
from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers
complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district
court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those
judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284
(2005).
Plaintiff’s complaint falls within the scope of this doctrine because he claims
entitlement to relief based, in part, on the mental anguish caused him by defendants’
failure to give him the relief sought, to wit, expungement, by dismissing or
disregarding his claims and suits. See Lawrence v. Welch, 531 F.3d 364, 368 (6th Cir.
2008) (“T]he pertinent inquiry after Exxon is whether the ‘source of the injury’ upon
which plaintiff bases his federal claim is the state court judgment . . . .”) (citing
McCormick v. Braverman, 451 F.3d 382, 393 (6th Cir. 2006)). Because plaintiff seeks
7
expunction of his Kentucky conviction/Tennessee sex offense charge, his claim is
precluded by the rule in Rooker-Feldman. Cf., Hood v. Keller, 341 F.3d 593, 598 (6th
Cit. 2003) (finding that, where a plaintiff does not ask for expungement, RookerFeldman does not bar the claim).
E. Non-Cognizable Claims
Even if these claims were not barred by the Eleventh Amendment, judicial
immunity, or the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the case could not proceed on other
grounds. Plaintiff’s core claim is bottomed on defendants’ failure to comply with a
state law which allegedly requires his out-of-state conviction and/or Tennessee sexrelated charge to be expunged from his criminal records.
However, “Section 1983 does not ... provide a basis for redressing violations of
state law, but only for those violations of federal law done under color of state law.”
Jones v. City and County of Denver, 854 F.2d 1206, 1209 (10th Cir. 1988). Here,
plaintiff’s argument that defendants failed to expunge his Kentucky sex-crime
conviction/Tennessee aggravated rape charge, in violation of the obligation imposed
on them under Tennessee law, fails to state a cognizable claim under § 1983. See
Boswell v. Mayer, 169 F.3d 384, 388 (6th Cir. 1999) (finding that the alleged
noncompliance with “a “host of state laws and administrative procedures” does not
state a § 1983 claim).
8
Furthermore, plaintiff’s request for an injunction ordering each defendant to
execute his responsibility to expunge the Kentucky conviction/Tennessee sex-crime
charge from his files is construed as a request for a writ of mandamus. Mandamus is
an extraordinary remedy justified only under circumstances "amounting to a judicial
usurpation of power." Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 95 (1967). To qualify for
mandamus relief, plaintiff must show he has no other adequate means of relief and that
his right to such relief is "clear and indisputable." In re Ford, 987 F.2d 334, 341 (6th
Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 862 (1992).
In this instance, plaintiff has failed to make any such a showing, but even if he
has, this Court lacks authority to act under the circumstances here alleged. See
Haggard v. Tenn., 421 F.2d 1384, 1386 (6th Cir.1970) (noting that“federal courts have
no authority to issue writs of mandamus to direct state courts or their judicial officers
in the performance of their duties”).
Because plaintiff’s complaint has failed to pass the screening test, a separate
order of dismissal will enter.3
ENTER:
s/J. RONNIE GREER
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
3
Plaintiff has filed a motion, [Doc. 16], seeking reconsideration of certain orders entered by the
Magistrate Judge on November 21, 2011, [Docs. 14, 15]. The Court’s order of judgment in the instant case
renders plaintiff’s motion moot.
9
Disclaimer: Justia Dockets & Filings provides public litigation records from the federal appellate and district courts. These filings and docket sheets should not be considered findings of fact or liability, nor do they necessarily reflect the view of Justia.
Why Is My Information Online?