Bonilla v. Solano County Superior Court

Background

Steven Wayne Bonilla filed multiple nearly identical civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. The opinion identifies him as a state prisoner and a condemned prisoner. He named various federal judges, state judges, state courts, and law-enforcement officials as defendants. His requested relief concerned his underlying conviction and the way his other state and federal cases had been handled.

The opinion states that Bonilla had a pending federal petition concerning his imprisonment in the same court, with appointed counsel, and was also represented by counsel in state-court proceedings. Those other proceedings were not the subject of the court’s ruling on these complaints.

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 from proceeding without payment may do so only if the complaint shows that the prisoner faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when the complaint was filed. The court found that these complaints did not show such danger, so Bonilla could not proceed without paying the filing fee.

The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without paying the fee were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal rules discussed in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The opinion also noted Bonilla’s extensive history of filing similar cases.

Disposition

The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It also rejected the concern that Judge Hamilton’s impartiality could reasonably be questioned because of the repetitive and frivolous nature of the filings. The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions and close the cases, and to return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.