Steven Wayne Bonilla v. Judge William B. Shubb
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:25-cv-06057
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
Bonilla v. Sacramento County Superior Court: Judge Hamilton dismissed multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice because filing restrictions and other legal bars applied.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s multiple related civil-rights cases were dismissed with prejudice. The order also terminated pending motions, closed the cases, and directed the clerk to return future submissions without filing them.
What happened
In Bonilla v. Sacramento County Superior Court, Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner filing without a lawyer, brought many nearly identical civil-rights cases against judges, courts, and law-enforcement officials. He challenged his conviction and how other cases had been handled.
The court said Bonilla could not file without paying the required fee because he had been barred from doing so unless he faced an immediate danger of serious physical injury. The court found that his complaints did not show such a danger and said additional legal rules would also bar the lawsuits.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton dismissed the cases with prejudice, ended all pending motions, and ordered the clerk to close the cases and return any further documents without filing them.
The detailed version
- Steven Wayne Bonilla v. Judge William B. Shubb · No. 4:25-cv-06057
- Phyllis Hamilton
- July 28, 2025
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, identified as a state prisoner and a condemned prisoner, filed multiple civil-rights complaints without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The opinion lists numerous related case numbers. Bonilla named various federal judges, state judges, state courts, and law-enforcement officials as defendants. The complaints presented nearly identical claims concerning his underlying conviction and the handling of his other state and federal cases.
The opinion states that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his custody with appointed counsel and was also represented by counsel in state-court proceedings concerning his custody. The opinion further notes that he had an extensive history of filing similar cases.
Reasons for dismissal
The court addressed Bonilla’s possible requests to proceed without paying the filing fees, a status commonly called proceeding in forma pauperis. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), the court said Bonilla had been disqualified from proceeding without paying unless he showed that he was in imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaints. The court found that the allegations did not show imminent danger.
The court also stated that, even if an application to proceed without paying had been granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules and precedents cited as Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The order did not separately analyze the underlying claims on their merits.
The court also stated that the repetitive and allegedly frivolous nature of the filings did not provide a basis to reasonably question the undersigned judge’s impartiality. It cited the principle that, absent legitimate grounds for recusal, a judge has a duty to decide assigned cases. The opinion notes that Bonilla named the undersigned judge as a defendant in one of the cases.
Disposition
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions and close the cases. The clerk was also ordered to return, without filing, any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases. The order was signed by United States District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.