UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA

TIMOTHY E. STROWMATT, )

)

Plaintiff, )

) Case No. 3:13-CV-1224-JVB

v. )

)

JEROME FRESE, )

)

Defendant. )

OPINION AND ORDER

Timothy E. Strowmatt, a pro se prisoner, filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983

asking this court to issue an injunction requiring State Court Judge Jerome Frese to file various

documents in his State criminal case and to set them for a hearing within 30 days. 

A document filed pro se is to be liberally construed, and a pro se complaint, however

inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by

lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (quotation marks and citations omitted).

Nevertheless, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the court must review the merits of a prisoner

complaint and dismiss it if the action is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim upon which

relief may be granted, or seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such

relief. 

Strowmatt believes that he is entitled to immediate release from prison.1

 He filed a State

habeas corpus petition in the Henry Circuit Court, which transferred it to the St. Joseph Superior

Court pursuant to Indiana Rules of Post-Conviction Remedies 1, Sec. 1(c) on July 30, 2013.

Strowmatt alleges that his petition remains unprocessed by Judge Jerome Frese and he wants this

Court to order him to address Strowmatt’s case. 

1

 This court denied his federal habeas corpus petition on September 27, 2011. Strowmatt v. Superintendent,

3:11-CV-003 (N.D. Ind. filed January 4, 2011). That ruling was affirmed when the Seventh Circuit denied him a

certificate of appealability and dismissed his appeal on March 21, 2012. 

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However, federal courts do not interfere with state criminal proceedings except in

extraordinary circumstances. Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). “The Younger abstention

doctrine requires federal courts to abstain from enjoining ongoing state proceedings that are (1)

judicial in nature, (2) implicate important state interests, and (3) offer an adequate opportunity

for review of constitutional claims, (4) so long as no extraordinary circumstances exist which

would make abstention inappropriate.” Green v. Benden, 281 F.3d 661, 666 (7th Cir. 2002). No

such extraordinary circumstances exist here. “Certain types of injury, in particular, the cost,

anxiety, and inconvenience of having to defend against a single criminal prosecution, [are] not

by themselves . . . considered ‘irreparable’ in the special legal sense of that term.” Younger, 401

U.S. at 46. Strowmatt has several options in the State courts that he has not tried, including:

asking for a change of judge pursuant to Ind. Crim. R. 12(B), seeking to obtain a ruling pursuant

to Ind. Crim. R. 15, filing a notice of appeal, or initiating an original action in the Indiana

Supreme Court. “[W]hen a litigant has not attempted to present his federal claims in related

state-court proceedings, a federal court should assume that state procedures will afford an

adequate remedy, in the absence of unambiguous authority to the contrary.” Pennzoil Co. v.

Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 15 (1987) . 

For the foregoing reasons, this case is DISMISSED as frivolous pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §

1915A. 

SO ORDERED on December 4, 2013.

 S/ Joseph S. Van Bokkelen 

JOSEPH S. VAN BOKKELEN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

2

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