Bonilla v. Alameda County District Attorney's Office
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:23-cv-01625
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Bonilla v. Judge Elia Ortez, Judge Hamilton dismissed the listed cases with prejudice after finding no imminent-danger exception and additional legal bars.
Steven Wayne Bonilla and the defendants in the listed cases; the cases were dismissed with prejudice, closed, and made subject to the clerk's return of future documents submitted in them.
What happened
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a condemned state prisoner representing himself, filed multiple nearly identical civil-rights lawsuits against federal and state judges and county officials. He sought relief related to his conviction and the handling of his other court cases.
The court found that Bonilla could not proceed without paying filing fees because his allegations did not show that he faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaints. The court also said the lawsuits would be barred by several legal rules even if fee-free filing were allowed, and dismissed the cases with prejudice.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton also rejected the suggestion that her impartiality could reasonably be questioned because Bonilla had filed repetitive and frivolous cases, including one naming her as a defendant. She ordered the clerk to end all pending motions, close the cases, and return future documents submitted in them without filing them.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Alameda County District Attorney's Office · No. 4:23-cv-01625
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Apr. 14, 2023
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner sentenced to death, filed multiple civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 while representing himself. The opinion lists these case numbers: 23-cv-1282-PJH, 23-cv-1415-PJH, 23-cv-1416-PJH, 23-cv-1575-PJH, 23-cv-1576-PJH, 23-cv-1577-PJH, 23-cv-1579-PJH, 23-cv-1580-PJH, 23-cv-1581-PJH, 23-cv-1582-PJH, 23-cv-1625-PJH, 23-cv-1627-PJH, 23-cv-1667-PJH, 23-cv-1668-PJH, 23-cv-1669-PJH, 23-cv-1670-PJH, 23-cv-1671-PJH, 23-cv-1673-PJH, 23-cv-1728-PJH, 23-cv-1729-PJH, 23-cv-1730-PJH, 23-cv-1731-PJH, and 23-cv-1732-PJH.
The complaints were nearly identical. Bonilla named various federal and state judges and county officials as defendants and sought relief concerning his underlying conviction or the way other state and federal cases had been handled. The opinion also states that he had a pending federal petition challenging his custody with appointed counsel and was represented by counsel in state custody proceedings.
Filing-fee ruling and dismissal
The court addressed Bonilla's possible request to proceed without paying filing fees, commonly called proceeding in forma pauperis. It stated that he had previously been disqualified from doing so under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), 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 such imminent danger.
The court further stated that, even if Bonilla's request to proceed without paying filing fees were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the rules discussed in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, or Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The opinion does not assign a particular one of those rules to each case or claim.
Ruling
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It ordered the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases. It also ordered the clerk to return, without filing, any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.
The opinion separately addressed judicial impartiality. Although Bonilla named Judge Hamilton as a defendant in one case, the court stated that the repetitive and frivolous filings did not create a situation in which the judge's impartiality could reasonably be questioned. Judge Hamilton signed the order on April 14, 2023.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.