Bonilla v. Nixon

Background

Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner representing himself, filed multiple civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaints were nearly identical. They named various federal and state judges and other officials as defendants and sought relief concerning Bonilla’s underlying conviction or the way state and federal courts had handled his other cases.

The opinion states that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his custody in the same district, where he had appointed counsel, and was also represented by counsel in state-court proceedings concerning his custody. Those proceedings were separate from the civil-rights cases addressed in this order.

Court’s reasoning

The court addressed Bonilla’s possible request to proceed without paying the filing fee. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), a prisoner who has been disqualified under that statute may proceed without paying only if he was facing an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaint. The court found that the allegations did not show such a danger at the time of filing.

The court further stated that, even if a filing-fee waiver were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules identified in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The order also addressed recusal and concluded that the repetitive and allegedly frivolous filings did not create a reasonable basis to question the undersigned judge’s impartiality.

Disposition

The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases, and to return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases. Because the order disposed of the cases through filing-fee screening and threshold legal bars rather than deciding the underlying civil-rights claims, this is classified as a procedural order.