United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted March 19, 2020*

Decided March 20, 2020 

Before 

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge 

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1836 

RUBEN SANCHEZ, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 18 C 06356 

Edmond E. Chang, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Ruben Sanchez posits a nationwide conspiracy to violate his civil rights. The 

district court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2), denied Sanchez’s 

request for counsel, and dismissed the suit without leave to amend. Because the suit is 

frivolous and amending the complaint would not cure its defects, we affirm. 

Sanchez’s complaint names as defendants the “U.S.,” “Ill. State,” “Cook County,” 

“Chicago,” “Judge[s],” “Law[y]ers,” and “cop Union.” He wants judges prosecuted as 

*

 The defendants were not served with process and are not participating in this 

appeal. After examining the appellant’s brief and the record, we have concluded that 

the case is appropriate for summary disposition. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 19-1836 Page 2 

the “head[s] of organi[zed] crime” because they are “evil [people].” The judges, he 

alleges, have secretly conspired with countless public and private officials (including 

local police, attorneys, and the clerk of the United States Supreme Court) to withhold 

and destroy evidence “all to protect one of [their] own.” Sanchez lists state and federal 

cases in which these conspiratorial acts occurred. He was not a litigant in all of these 

suits, but he asserts that their outcomes or proceedings were unjust. 

Sanchez moved for leave to file the complaint without prepaying filing fees and 

for recruited counsel. He wrote one word—“Rosewine”—to explain which attorneys he 

had contacted and why he was unable to retain one on his own. 

Because Sanchez sought leave to sue without prepaying the filing fee, the district 

court screened the complaint under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i), which requires dismissal if the 

action is frivolous. The court ruled that, because Sanchez’s allegations “sprawl[ed] 

across various cases, the state and federal court systems, and various levels of those 

courts, all the way up to the United States Supreme Court,” they were “fanciful.” To the 

extent that it could discern whom Sanchez wanted to sue, the court reasoned that some 

defendants—the United States and the State of Illinois—were immune from suit and 

others were not “actually described as conspirators in the complaint.” The court ruled 

that these problems were incurable so amendment would be futile. Finally, the court 

denied Sanchez’s motion to recruit counsel because Sanchez provided only one obscure 

word to explain why he could not secure a lawyer on his own and because “no attorney 

can fix this complaint.” 

On appeal, Sanchez primarily argues that the district court wrongly dismissed 

the suit. He contends that he should have received leave to amend, with counsel, 

because an attorney could have clarified the defendants and stated a proper claim. 

The district court permissibly denied leave to amend. Generally, a plaintiff is 

entitled to amend the complaint once as a matter of right, and a district court should 

“freely give leave [to amend] when justice so requires.” FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a). But district 

courts may deny leave to amend when “the amendment would be futile,” Arreola v. 

Godinez, 546 F.3d 788, 796 (7th Cir. 2008), and we review a ruling on futility de novo, 

Heng v. Heavner, Beyers & Mihlar, LLC, 849 F.3d 348, 354 (7th Cir. 2017). Here, the court 

correctly decided that Sanchez’s allegations are incurably frivolous. To begin, they are 

irrational. See Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S 25, 32–33 (1992); Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 

319, 325 (1989). Sanchez imagines officials from all branches and levels of government 

secretly conspiring with unions and lawyers, but the imagined network is so vast that 
No. 19-1836 Page 3 

secrecy could not be possible. No amendment that retains this conspiracy could cure the 

internal contradiction that it involves countless participants in a secret pact. 

The district court also did not abuse its discretion in refusing to recruit counsel 

for the purpose of proposing an amended complaint. When faced with a request under 

§ 1915(e)(1) for counsel, a district court’s threshold inquiry is whether “the indigent 

plaintiff made a reasonable attempt to obtain counsel.” Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 654 

(7th Cir. 2007) (en banc). The district ordered Sanchez (1) to list all attorneys and 

organizations from whom he sought representation, and (2) to explain why he was 

unsuccessful. It also warned him that he “must” complete both items or the court may 

deny his motion. Sanchez left one of those two questions blank, and for the other he 

provided only one unhelpful word (“Rosewine”). Under these circumstances (and apart 

from the frivolousness of the complaint), the district court reasonably denied his 

request. See id. 

We have considered Sanchez’s other arguments, and none has merit. 

AFFIRMED