Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_05-cv-00682/USCOURTS-caed-2_05-cv-00682-12/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

ANDREW S. HODGINS,

Plaintiff, No. CIV S-05-0682 MCE GGH P

vs.

JEANNE S. WOODFORD, et al.,

Defendants. ORDER 

 /

Plaintiff, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, seeks relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §

1983. Pending before the court is plaintiff’s May 24, 2007, motion for attorney’s fees, to which

defendant has filed an opposition.

In this civil rights action, which now proceeds as to plaintiff’s claims in his

original complaint, filed April 8, 2005, only against defendant Campbell, plaintiff seeks $600.00

in attorney’s fees citing, as the sole basis for his motion, Cal. Penal Code §§ 987.2 and 987.3. 

Motion, p. 1. This motion is wholly inappropriate for more than one reason. 

In the first place, plaintiff is not an attorney and is therefore not entitled to

attorney’s fees. This is the so, even if the pro se litigant in a civil rights action prevails, which in

this case, plaintiff has yet to do. Gonzalez v. Kangas, 814 F.2d 1411 (9 Cir. 1987)(pro se th

prisoner seeking award of attorney fees in civil rights action wherein he was successful is not

Case 2:05-cv-00682-MCE -GGH Document 54 Filed 01/07/08 Page 1 of 2
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entitled to award of attorney’s fees). In the second place, as defendant points out, the statutes on

which plaintiff relies are state statutes relating to attorneys for indigent defendants in criminal,

not civil, actions. Opposition, p. 1. Plaintiff’s specific emphasis on Cal. Penal Code §

987.2(g)(2), which concerns a subsequent state court’s discretion in certain circumstances to

appoint the same counsel for a defendant first charged with a criminal offense in another county

and represented in the earlier case by that counsel, is particularly puzzling and without any

application whatsoever to this civil rights action filed by a pro se prisoner litigant in federal

court. 

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that plaintiff’s wholly meritless motion for

attorney’s fees, filed on May 24, 2007, is denied.

Dated: 1/7/08

/s/ Gregory G. Hollows

 

GREGORY G. HOLLOWS 

 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

GGH:009

hodg0682.dny

Case 2:05-cv-00682-MCE -GGH Document 54 Filed 01/07/08 Page 2 of 2