McGee v. The City of Hercules
- Thomas Hixson
- 3:23-cv-05161
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In McGee v. City of Hercules, Judge Hixson denied appointed counsel because exceptional circumstances were absent; the case remains stayed.
Anthony McGee’s request for appointed counsel was denied, and the stay of his case remains in effect. The defendants are affected by the continued stay of the case.
What happened
In McGee v. The City of Hercules, the court had stayed Anthony McGee’s case while related supervised-release proceedings concluded. McGee told the court those proceedings had ended and that he was serving a 12-month sentence, making his presence unavailable until at least April of the following year.
McGee asked the court to appoint counsel to settle the case. The court explained that civil litigants generally do not have a right to appointed counsel, but a court may appoint pro bono counsel in exceptional circumstances. It found that McGee had adequately presented his claims without a lawyer and that the issues did not appear unusually complex.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson denied McGee’s request for appointed counsel. The stay remains in effect, although McGee may tell the court that he wants to continue the case himself and ask that the stay be lifted.
The detailed version
- McGee v. The City of Hercules · No. 3:23-cv-05161
- Thomas Hixson
- Sept. 23, 2024
Background
On July 29, 2024, the court stayed this case while supervised-release proceedings in a related criminal case concluded. Anthony McGee then moved for appointment of counsel. He stated that those proceedings had concluded, that he was serving a 12-month sentence, and that he wanted appointed counsel “to settle the case” because he could not be present until at least April of the next year.
Legal standard
The court explained that people generally have no right to appointed counsel in civil cases. A court may appoint pro bono counsel for an indigent civil litigant when “exceptional circumstances” exist. The court considers both the likelihood of success on the merits and the litigant’s ability to explain the claims without a lawyer, considering the complexity of the legal issues. Neither factor alone controls.
Court’s analysis
The court said that, at this early stage, McGee’s likelihood of success was unclear. It nevertheless found that McGee had sufficiently explained his claims without counsel and that the issues did not appear unduly complex. The court also noted that McGee was actively pursuing other cases in the district without representation, including a filing made on September 18, 2024.
Ruling
The court found that exceptional circumstances did not exist and denied McGee’s request for appointment of counsel. The stay remains in effect. The court stated that McGee may inform it that he wishes to prosecute the case himself and request that the stay be lifted.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.