Court Opinion

ID: 9961294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-18 16:00:54.702143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:32.319517
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        APR 18 2024
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DAJUAN WILLIAMS,                                No.    22-15512

                Plaintiff-Appellant,            D.C. No.
                                                2:21-cv-02151-MTL-CDB
 v.

DAVID SHINN, Director, Director of              MEMORANDUM*
Arizona Department of Corrections; et al.,

                Defendants-Appellees.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                            for the District of Arizona
                   Michael T. Liburdi, District Judge, Presiding

                       Argued and Submitted April 2, 2024
                           San Francisco, California

Before: HURWITZ and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges, and MORRIS,** District
Judge.

      As mandated by then-existing Arizona law and the terms of a restitution

order issued in conjunction with DaJuan Williams’s 1999 sentencing, the Arizona

Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (“ADOC”) was required to

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The Honorable Brian M. Morris, Chief Judge for the District of
Montana, sitting by designation.
deduct one third of his prison work wages to satisfy a restitution judgment. A

2007 amendment to the governing statute, however, subjected all money in a

prisoner’s account to withdrawal to pay restitution, including not only prison work

wages but also money received from other sources, including family and friends.

2007 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 140, § 1 (1st Reg. Sess.) (codified at A.R.S. § 31-230).

ADOC withdrew funds from Williams’s account in accordance with its

interpretation of the amended statute beginning around 2009.

      On December 15, 2021, Williams filed a pro se 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action

alleging that ADOC violated the terms of his sentencing and restitution orders, the

Ex Post Facto clause, and the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the

Fourteenth Amendment by withdrawing funds under the new statute. Screening

under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a), the district court

dismissed the complaint, finding that Williams’s claims accrued in 2009 when

ADOC first applied its post-amendment policy to him and thus were barred by the

applicable two-year statute of limitations.

      We have jurisdiction of Williams’s timely appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

We vacate the judgment of the district court and remand.

      1. The parties now agree that each deduction from Williams’s account was a

discrete act, see Pouncil v. Tilton, 704 F.3d 568, 579 (9th Cir. 2012), and that claims

concerning deductions made on or after December 15, 2019, are therefore timely.

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Following the general rule that “a federal appellate court does not consider an issue

not passed upon below,” Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976), we decline

ADOC’s invitation to address the merits of Williams’s claims in the first instance.

Rather, we vacate the judgment below and remand to allow the district court to do

so.

      2. Williams alleges he was injured by a deduction from his inmate trust

account that occurred in December 2019.1 It is not clear from the complaint whether

this deduction occurred before, on, or after December 15, 2019, the key date for the

applicable two-year limitations period. Because this case was resolved at screening

based on the district court’s conclusion that Williams’s claims accrued in 2009 and

were therefore untimely, that court did not provide Williams an opportunity to

amend his complaint to specify the date on which the December 2019 deduction

occurred, and can do so on remand. See Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th

Cir. 2000) (en banc) (explaining that courts should not “forc[e] prisoners with

deficient but curable complaints to file new actions, rather than simply amending

their initial complaints”).

      VACATED AND REMANDED.

1
 Williams does not assert a claim based on any deductions that occurred prior to
December 2019, which would be barred by the two-year statute of limitations
because he was aware of, and previously brought a lawsuit regarding, prior
deductions from his inmate trust account.

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