Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01778/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01778-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jose Reyes
Appellee
Jovan Williams
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted January 7, 2020*

Decided January 28, 2020 

Before 

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1778 

JOVAN WILLIAMS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

JOSE REYES, 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 3:17-cv-452-jdp 

James D. Peterson, 

Chief Judge. 

O R D E R 

Jovan Williams, a Wisconsin prisoner, sued a correctional officer under the 

Eighth Amendment for failing to prevent his attempted suicide. A jury found in favor 

of the officer. On appeal, Williams challenges only the district court’s denial of his 

request for recruited counsel to represent him at trial. The district court determined that 

the case presented a straightforward question that Williams appeared competent to 

*

 We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

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No. 19-1778 Page 2 

litigate by himself. In light of all the relevant circumstances, we find no abuse of 

discretion and therefore affirm. 

Williams was under observation in the restricted housing unit at the Green Bay 

Correctional Institution because he presented a risk of self-harm. On June 28, 2017, he 

attempted to take his own life by suffocating himself with a plastic bag. Correctional 

officers intervened, and after a nurse assessed him, he was returned to his cell. Williams 

maintains that at the time, he experienced physical effects (such as headaches and 

dizziness), and that he continues to suffer psychologically from the trauma. 

The parties dispute where Williams got the plastic bag. Williams has sworn that 

correctional officer Jose Reyes gave it to him the day before his suicide attempt. 

According to Williams, Reyes delivered Williams’s lunch—nutraloaf—wrapped in a 

plastic bag. Williams says that he told Reyes he would use the plastic bag to harm 

himself and that Reyes responded: “If you want to harm yourself with the plastic bag, 

then go ahead and have fun with it.” Although Reyes initially admitted delivering 

lunch to Williams, he denied it was in a plastic bag. Nutraloaf is generally served 

wrapped in paper. Reyes denied, before and at the trial, that Williams ever showed him 

a plastic bag or said that he would use it to harm himself. 

In his complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Williams alleged that Reyes displayed 

deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm by giving him a plastic bag 

and making no effort to retrieve it after hearing that he planned to harm himself. 

Several months after filing his complaint, Williams requested recruited counsel. He 

explained that a jailhouse lawyer had prepared all his submissions. He cited his lack of 

litigation experience, his limited education, and his limited access to the law library 

given his housing placement. The complexity of the case was beyond his capabilities, he 

argued, because his depression impaired his ability to think critically. 

After concluding that Williams had made reasonable efforts to secure private 

counsel, the district court denied his motion. The court recognized Williams’s mentalhealth problems, lack of legal experience, and limited law library access. The court 

reasoned, however, that it was “too early to tell” how these problems would affect 

Williams’s ability to litigate his case. The court noted that Williams’s submissions, 

“although aided by another inmate, have been easy to understand.” 

Reyes moved for summary judgment. Williams, who had been transferred to 

another prison by that point, filed an extensive response drafted by another inmate, 

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along with another motion for recruited counsel. Williams asked the court to recruit 

counsel for him if the court denied the motion for summary judgment. 

The district court denied the summary judgment motion upon concluding that 

there were material factual disputes about where the plastic bag came from, whether 

Reyes knew about it, and whether Reyes had heard and disregarded a threat of selfharm. At the same time, the court denied Williams’s request to recruit him counsel for 

trial. The court emphasized that Williams’s deliberate indifference claim against a single 

defendant was “relatively simple” when compared to many cases brought by pro se 

litigants. It recognized that Williams was mentally ill and had received the assistance of 

other inmates to litigate his case. The court, however, reasoned that Williams had not 

“submitted anything suggesting that he will be unable to tell his version of events at 

trial,” which would be his “primary responsibility.” The court recognized that although 

Williams would face challenges in “prepar[ing] opening and closing statements, 

develop[ing] direct lines of questioning, or cross-examin[ing] witnesses,” these were the 

“same challenges facing all pro se litigants.” The court noted that more than 300 pro se 

cases are filed each year in the district and that the court is generally able to recruit only 

around 20 volunteer lawyers per year. Trial was later set for April 1, 2019. 

The district court entered a lengthy trial preparation order on January 19, 

instructing the parties on trial procedure, evidentiary rules, and subpoenaing witnesses, 

among other things. According to Williams, he did not “understand any of the content” 

of the trial preparation order. In his multiple motions for recruited counsel, he restated 

his mental-health concerns and emphasized that because of his communication 

difficulties, he would have trouble performing cross-examinations or explaining the 

events of his claim to a crowd of people. Further, he emphasized that since his 

placement on clinical observation status after an overdose, he no longer had his legal 

file, which included his copy of the court’s trial procedures. 

The district court denied each motion, concluding that given the relative 

simplicity of Williams’s case and “in light of [his] abilities,” Williams would be able to 

try the case on his own. His primary responsibility at trial, the court reiterated, would 

be to tell the jury his version of events. On one occasion, the court listed the events and 

facts Williams should recite at trial, instructing him to prepare by reviewing the 

summary judgment decision and the trial preparation order. Concerned about 

Williams’s lack of access to his legal file and that he had missed the deadlines to file 

witness and exhibit lists, the court attempted to accommodate Williams’s challenges, 

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saying that if Williams could think of specific documents from the record he wanted as 

exhibits, the court would provide him with copies. 

At trial, Williams managed to deliver opening and closing statements, although 

his cross-examination questions were often difficult to follow. As a result, the court at 

times interceded and asked questions for Williams or interrupted witnesses who failed 

to answer his questions. While cross-examining Reyes, Williams said that he was about 

to have a “mental breakdown,” so the court paused the trial until the next morning. 

Despite Williams’s missteps, the court told him during a sidebar that he had performed 

admirably for a pro se prisoner: he was able to strike a juror, exclude a witness, and 

impeach the defendant (on his testimony that another guard handed Williams his 

lunch). The jury returned a verdict for defendant Reyes. 

On appeal, Williams argues that the district court erred by denying his five 

motions to recruit counsel. He says that the court should have recruited counsel because 

he did not understand the issue of deliberate indifference; nearly all of the evidence was 

disputed; he was unfamiliar with legal proceedings or rules of evidence; he could not 

access key witnesses and documents; and he had to question Reyes, who had allegedly 

encouraged him to attempt suicide. 

Federal civil litigants have no right to court-appointed counsel. Olson v. Morgan, 

750 F.3d 708, 711 (7th Cir. 2014), citing Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 649 (7th Cir. 2007) 

(en banc). An indigent civil litigant may ask a district court to recruit a volunteer lawyer 

to represent him or her. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1). We review a district court’s denial of 

that request for abuse of discretion. See Olson, 750 F.3d at 711–12; Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 658. 

As with any discretionary determination, our review is deferential. See Pruitt, 503 F.3d 

at 649, 658. We ask whether the district court applied the proper legal standard and 

arrived at a reasonable conclusion using facts in the record. Id. at 658. 

In deciding whether to recruit counsel, the district court must ask: “given the 

difficulty of the case, does the plaintiff appear competent to litigate it himself?” Olson, 

F.3d at 711, citing Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 654. No one disputes that Williams cleared the 

threshold hurdle by making reasonable attempts to find counsel on his own. Pruitt, 503 

F.3d at 654. At the second step, a court must consider the plaintiff’s “capacity as a 

layperson to coherently present [his case] to the judge or jury himself.” Olson, 750 F.3d 

at 711, citing Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 655. 

Given this legal standard, we see no abuse of discretion here. The district court’s 

inquiry was quite specific to the particular case. The court focused on the nature of the 

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upcoming trial, assessed its difficulty, and weighed it against Williams’s ability to 

litigate the case himself. Olson, 750 F.3d at 711, citing Pruitt, 503 F.3d at 654. Here, the 

court accurately identified the issue for trial as “relatively simple.” It would hinge on 

whether Reyes in fact gave Williams a plastic bag, heard the threat of suicide, and told 

Williams to “have fun with it.” That question depended on the credibility of the parties. 

The jury would not require expert testimony or documentary exhibits to decide whom 

to believe. The relevant substantive and procedural rules could be, and were, explained 

to Williams in pretrial conferences and trial preparation orders. See Olson, 750 F.3d at 

711. Further, the court took note of Williams’s mental illness and reliance on the 

assistance of other inmates before it concluded that Williams “has not submitted 

anything suggesting that he will be unable to tell his version of events at trial”—his 

“primary responsibility.” 

The district court did not ignore the difficulty of trying Williams’s claims before 

a jury. See Walker v. Price, 900 F.3d 933, 938–39 (7th Cir. 2018). Rather, in this instance, 

the district court made a conscientious effort to protect Williams from unfair 

disadvantages and to provide appropriate guidance both before and during trial. Before 

trial, the court enumerated the facts Williams should recount and the documents 

Williams should review in preparation for trial. The court also accommodated 

Williams’s lack of access to his legal file. This guidance continued during trial. For 

example, at one point, when Reyes did not directly answer Williams’s question, the 

court interceded on Williams’s behalf and repeated his question. At another time, when 

Williams asked Reyes a compound question, the court explained to Williams that he 

should deliver his questions separately. Further, the court was cognizant of Williams’s 

mental-health problems; when Williams told the court that he was about to have a 

“mental breakdown” while cross-examining Reyes, the court put the trial on hold until 

the next morning. The court even included, upon Williams’s request, a jury instruction 

emphasizing that temporary loss of consciousness would constitute physical injury. 

Finally, in light of the scarcity of volunteer lawyers, the district court was entitled 

to view the needs of pro se litigants in the district as a whole and to exercise its 

discretion to determine which cases warranted the outlay of judicial resources in 

attempting to recruit counsel. See Olson, 750 F.3d at 711. As the district court recognized 

here, almost any pro se litigant would be better off with a lawyer, but that reality is not 

sufficient to require the court to try to recruit one. In this case, the district court was 

entitled to conclude that, given the simplicity of Williams’s case “among a sea of people 

lacking counsel,” id., it need not recruit counsel for Williams. The judgment is 

AFFIRMED. 

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