Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-00080/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-00080-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JIM CHATMAN COOPER, JR., 

Plaintiff, No. CIV S-07-0080 LKK GGH P

vs.

LASSEN COUNTY SHERIFF’S

DEPARTMENT, et al.,

Defendants. ORDER

 /

Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding pro se. He seeks relief pursuant to 42

U.S.C. § 1983 and has requested authority pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915 to proceed in forma

pauperis. This proceeding was referred to this court by Local Rule 72-302 pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 636(b)(1).

Plaintiff has submitted a declaration that makes the showing required by 28

U.S.C. § 1915(a). Accordingly, the request to proceed in forma pauperis will be granted. 

Plaintiff is required to pay the statutory filing fee of $350.00 for this action. 28

U.S.C. §§ 1914(a), 1915(b)(1). An initial partial filing fee of $6.00 will be assessed by this

order. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1). By separate order, the court will direct the appropriate agency to

collect the initial partial filing fee from plaintiff’s trust account and forward it to the Clerk of the

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Court. Thereafter, plaintiff will be obligated for monthly payments of twenty percent of the

preceding month’s income credited to plaintiff’s prison trust account. These payments will be

forwarded by the appropriate agency to the Clerk of the Court each time the amount in plaintiff’s

account exceeds $10.00, until the filing fee is paid in full. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2).

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 legally “frivolous or malicious,” that fail to state a claim upon which relief may be

granted, or that seek monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. 28

U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1),(2). 

A claim is legally frivolous when 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). The court may, therefore, dismiss a claim as frivolous where it is based on an

indisputably meritless legal theory or where the factual contentions are clearly baseless. Neitzke,

490 U.S. at 327. The critical inquiry is whether a constitutional claim, however inartfully

pleaded, has an arguable legal and factual basis. See Jackson v. Arizona, 885 F.2d 639, 640 (9th

Cir. 1989); Franklin, 745 F.2d at 1227.

A complaint, or portion thereof, should only be dismissed for failure to state a

claim upon which relief may be granted if it appears beyond doubt that plaintiff can prove no set

of facts in support of the claim or claims that would entitle him to relief. See Hishon v. King &

Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984), citing Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957); see also

Palmer v. Roosevelt Lake Log Owners Ass’n, 651 F.2d 1289, 1294 (9th Cir. 1981). In reviewing

a complaint under this standard, the court must accept as true the allegations of the complaint in

question, Hospital Bldg. Co. v. Rex Hospital Trustees, 425 U.S. 738, 740 (1976), 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). 

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The complaint states a colorable claim for relief against defendants Lassen County

Sheriff’s Department and Lassen County Sheriff’s Deputy Gualco, for excessive force in

violation of the Eighth Amendment, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b).

However, as to defendant Sgt. David Martin, plaintiff’s only allegation is that he

“filed a false arrest report that helped land me in prison.” Form Complaint (Cmp.), p. 3. In Heck

v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S. Ct. 2364 (1994), an Indiana state prisoner brought a civil

rights action under § 1983 for damages. Claiming that state and county officials violated his

constitutional rights, he sought damages for improprieties in the investigation leading to his

arrest, for the destruction of evidence, and for conduct during his trial (“illegal and unlawful

voice identification procedure”). Convicted on voluntary manslaughter charges, and serving a

fifteen year term, plaintiff did not seek injunctive relief or release from custody. The United

States Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal’s dismissal of the complaint and held that:

in order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional

conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions

whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid,

a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has

been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order,

declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such

determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance

of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A claim for damages

bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not

been so invalidated is not cognizable under 1983.

Heck, 512 U.S. at 486, 114 S. Ct. at 2372. The Court expressly held that a cause of action for

damages under § 1983 concerning a criminal conviction or sentence cannot exist unless the

conviction or sentence has been invalidated, expunged or reversed. Id. Plaintiff has made no

showing that the conviction arising from the arrest for which he seeks to implicate defendant

Martin has been reversed or invalidated; absent such a showing, plaintiff cannot proceed against

Martin, seeking money damages for a “false arrest report.” Defendant Martin will be dismissed,

but plaintiff is granted leave to amend. 

\\\\\

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 “[W]e recognize that States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests 1

which are protected by the Due Process Clause. See also Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S.

369, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987). But these interests will be generally limited to

freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an unexpected manner as

to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause of its own force, see, e.g., Vitek v. Jones,

445 U.S. 480, 493, 100 S.Ct.1254, 1263-1264 (transfer to mental hospital), and Washington, 494

U.S. 210, 221- 222, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 1036-1037 (involuntary administration of psychotropic

drugs), nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the

ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin v. Conner, supra. 

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Plaintiff alleges that defendants Lassen County Sheriff’s Dept. Sgt. R. Zielen and

Sheriff/Coroner Steven W. Warren did not follow through on a citizen’s complaint plaintiff made

in a timely manner, nor is there any record that an internal affairs investigation took place. Cmp.,

pp. 2-3. Plaintiff does not make entirely clear what his citizen complaint concerned; presumably,

it related to his excessive force allegations against defendant Gualco in this action. In any event,

prisoners do not have a “separate constitutional entitlement to a specific prison grievance

procedure.” Ramirez v. Galaza, 334 F.3d 850, 860 (9th Cir. 2003), citing Mann v. Adams, 855

F.2d 639, 640 (9th Cir. 1988). Even the non-existence of, or the failure of prison officials to

properly implement, an administrative appeals process within the prison system does not raise

constitutional concerns. Mann v. Adams, 855 F.2d 639, 640 (9th Cir. 1988). See also, Buckley

v. Barlow, 997 F.2d 494, 495 (8th Cir. 1993); Flick v. Alba, 932 F.2d 728 (8th Cir. 1991). Azeez

v. DeRobertis, 568 F. Supp. 8, 10 (N.D.Ill. 1982) (“[A prison] grievance procedure is a

procedural right only, it does not confer any substantive right upon the inmates. Hence, it does

not give rise to a protected liberty interest requiring the procedural protections envisioned by the

fourteenth amendment”). Specifically, a failure to process a grievance does not state a

constitutional violation. Buckley, supra. State regulations give rise to a liberty interest protected

by the Due Process Clause of the federal constitution only if those regulations pertain to

“freedom from restraint” that “imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation

to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484, 115 S. Ct. 2293,

2300 (1995). Nor does plaintiff allege that he was a pretrial detainee at the time that he filed his 1

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jail grievance and that he was denied access to jail grievance procedures; in any event, jail

grievance procedures do not create an enforceable substantive right under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 

Flournoy v. Fairman, 897 F.Supp. 350, 354 (N.D. Ill. 1995). Plaintiff’s due process claims

against defendants Zielen and Warren will be dismissed but plaintiff will be granted leave to

amend. 

If plaintiff chooses to amend the complaint, plaintiff must demonstrate how the

conditions complained of have resulted in a deprivation of plaintiff’s constitutional rights. See

Ellis v. Cassidy, 625 F.2d 227 (9th Cir. 1980). Also, the complaint must allege in specific terms

how each named defendant is involved. There can be no liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 unless

there is some affirmative link or connection between a defendant’s actions and the claimed

deprivation. Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362 (1976); May v. Enomoto, 633 F.2d 164, 167 (9th Cir.

1980); Johnson v. Duffy, 588 F.2d 740, 743 (9th Cir. 1978). Furthermore, vague and conclusory

allegations of official participation in civil rights violations are not sufficient. See Ivey v. Board

of Regents, 673 F.2d 266, 268 (9th Cir. 1982).

In addition, plaintiff is informed that the court cannot refer to a prior pleading in

order to make plaintiff’s amended complaint complete. Local Rule 15-220 requires that an

amended complaint be complete in itself without reference to any prior pleading. This is

because, as a general rule, an amended complaint supersedes the original complaint. See Loux v.

Rhay, 375 F.2d 55, 57 (9th Cir. 1967). Once plaintiff files an amended complaint, the original

pleading no longer serves any function in the case. Therefore, in an amended complaint, as in an

original complaint, each claim and the involvement of each defendant must be sufficiently

alleged.

Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:

1. Plaintiff’s request to proceed in forma pauperis is granted;

2. Plaintiff is obligated to pay the statutory filing fee of $350.00 for this action. 

Plaintiff is assessed an initial partial filing fee of $6.00. All fees shall be collected and paid in

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accordance with this court’s order to the Director of the California Department of Corrections

and Rehabilitation filed concurrently herewith.

3. Plaintiff’s claims against defendants Martin, Zielen, and Warren, are dismissed

for the reasons discussed above, with leave to file an amended complaint within thirty days from

the date of service of this Order. Failure to file an amended complaint will result in a

recommendation that these defendants be dismissed from this action.

4. Upon filing an amended complaint or expiration of the time allowed therefor,

the court will make further orders for service of process upon some or all of the defendants.

DATED: 4/11/07

/s/ Gregory G. Hollows

____________________________________

GREGORY G. HOLLOWS

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

GGH:009

coop0080.b1

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