Bonilla v. Nunley

Background

Steven Wayne Bonilla, identified as a state prisoner, filed multiple civil-rights complaints without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a statute allowing claims for violations of federal rights by persons acting under state law. The order covers the related cases listed in the caption. The complaints were nearly identical and named various federal judges, state judges, state courts, and law-enforcement officials as defendants.

The complaints sought relief concerning Bonilla’s underlying conviction or the way his other state and federal cases had been handled. The court noted that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his detention in the same court, with appointed counsel, and was also represented by counsel in state-court proceedings.

Court’s reasoning

The court addressed Bonilla’s possible request to proceed without paying the filing fees. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), a prisoner who has accumulated the relevant prior dismissals generally cannot proceed without paying those fees unless the complaint shows that the prisoner faced imminent danger of serious physical injury when the complaint was filed. The court found that these complaints did not show such danger.

The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without paying fees 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 opinion did not provide a separate explanation of how each cited rule applied to each complaint.

The court also stated that the repetitive and allegedly frivolous nature of the filings did not create a reasonable basis to question the undersigned judge’s impartiality. It therefore did not recuse itself, although the opinion does not describe a separately filed recusal motion.

Disposition

Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton dismissed the cases with prejudice. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions and close the cases, and to return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.

Classification

This is a procedural order because the court disposed of the cases based on the prisoner filing-fee restriction and other threshold legal bars rather than deciding the underlying civil-rights claims on their merits.