Case ID: f-appx_185/html/0412-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM: \n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Wanda WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Pat H. WATTS, Jr., etc.; et al., Defendants, Pat H. Watts, Jr., individually and in Official Capacity as Chancery Judge in the Sixteenth Chancery Court District, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 05-60103.
    Conference Calendar.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
    Decided June 21, 2006.
    Wanda Alexander Williams, Law Offices of Wanda Williams, Pascagoula, MS, pro se.
    Royce Cole, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, for Defendant-Appellee.
    Before STEWART, DENNIS, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM:

Wanda Williams has appealed the district court’s judgment dismissing her complaint filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In her complaint, Williams named the following defendants: Pat H. Watts, Chancery Judge of Jackson County, Mississippi; Mike Byrd, Sheriff of Jackson County, Mississippi; Judson Locke, Deputy Sheriff of Jackson County Sheriffs Department; and Luther Kuykendall, Deputy Sheriff of Jackson County Sheriffs Department. Williams is an attorney who filed the instant pro se § 1983 complaint as a result of her arrest and sentence for contempt of court. The district court dismissed Williams’s complaint, pursuant to Fed. R.Crv.P. 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted based upon the doctrine of absolute judicial immunity.

Williams contends that the district court erred in holding that Chancery Judge Watts was entitled to judicial immunity and in granting his motion to dismiss. A district court’s ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim is subject to de novo review. Scanlan v. Texas A & M University, 343 F.3d 533, 536 (5th Cir.2003). Judicial officers are entitled to absolute immunity from damages in § 1983 actions arising out of all acts performed in the exercise of their judicial functions. Krueger v. Reimer, 66 F.3d 75, 77 (5th Cir.1995). However, a judge has no immunity for actions taken outside of his judicial capacity, or for actions that are judicial in nature, but occur in complete absence of all jurisdiction. Malina v. Gonzales, 994 F.2d 1121, 1124 (5th Cir. 1993). Williams has failed to show a lack of immunity. See id.; Mireles v. Waco, 502 U.S. 9, 12-13, 112 S.Ct. 286, 116 L.Ed.2d 9 (1991). Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 
      
       Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.