Bonilla v. Sonoma County Superior Court

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 complaints were nearly identical. They named various federal and state judges as defendants and sought relief concerning Bonilla’s underlying conviction or the way his other cases had been handled by state and federal courts.

The opinion also states that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his imprisonment with appointed counsel and was represented by counsel in state-court proceedings.

Filing-Fee Status

Bonilla had previously been disqualified from proceeding without paying the filing fee under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), unless he showed that he was in immediate danger of serious physical injury when he filed the complaint. The court found that the allegations did not show such danger. Therefore, Bonilla could not proceed without paying the filing fee.

Other Legal Bars

The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without paying the filing 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, or Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The opinion did not provide a separate claim-by-claim analysis of which rule applied to which complaint.

Ruling

The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases. It also directed the clerk to return, without filing, any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.

Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton also determined that the repetitive and allegedly frivolous nature of the filings did not create a reasonable question about her impartiality requiring recusal. The opinion notes that Bonilla named the judge as a defendant in one of the cases but did not provide the rest of that discussion in the supplied text.