Bonilla v. Bolin
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:24-cv-00018
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Bonilla v. Bolin, Judge Hamilton dismissed multiple civil-rights cases with prejudice after finding the prisoner could not proceed without fees and his suits were legally barred.
Steven Wayne Bonilla’s multiple civil-rights cases were dismissed with prejudice; the named federal and state judges and state courts were defendants in those cases.
What happened
In Bonilla v. Bolin, Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner representing himself, filed multiple nearly identical civil-rights lawsuits against various federal and state judges and state courts. He challenged his conviction and the handling of his other cases.
The court said Bonilla could not proceed without paying filing fees because he had been barred from using the fee-waiver process unless he showed an imminent danger of serious physical injury. The court found that his complaints did not show such danger. It also said that, even if he could proceed without fees, the lawsuits were barred by several legal doctrines.
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice, terminated all pending motions, and closed the cases. Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton also rejected any concern that her impartiality could reasonably be questioned based on the repetitive filings, although Bonilla had named her as a defendant in one case.
The detailed version
- Bonilla v. Bolin · No. 4:24-cv-00018
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Jan. 29, 2024
Background
Steven Wayne Bonilla, a state prisoner sentenced to death, filed multiple civil-rights complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. The order covers the cases listed in the caption, including 23-cv-6555-PJH and numerous related 2024 cases. Bonilla named various federal and state judges and state courts as defendants. The court said the complaints presented nearly identical claims seeking relief concerning Bonilla’s underlying conviction or the way his other cases had been handled.
The order noted that Bonilla had a pending federal petition challenging his imprisonment in the same court with appointed counsel, and that he was represented by counsel in state-court proceedings concerning that petition. Those proceedings were not the matters decided by this order.
Filing-Fee Restriction and Other Bars
The court ruled that, to the extent Bonilla sought permission to proceed without paying the filing fee, he was disqualified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). That statute permits a prisoner with the relevant filing history to proceed without fees only when the complaint shows that the prisoner faced an imminent danger of serious physical injury when the complaint was filed. The court found that Bonilla’s allegations did not show such danger.
The court further stated that, even if an application to proceed without fees were granted, the lawsuits would be barred under the legal doctrines identified in Heck v. Humphrey, Younger v. Harris, Demos v. U.S. District Court, and Mullis v. U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The order did not provide a separate claim-by-claim analysis of those doctrines.
Ruling
The court dismissed the cases with prejudice. It directed the clerk to terminate all pending motions and close the cases, and to return without filing any further documents Bonilla submitted in the closed cases.
The court also addressed judicial impartiality. It stated that the repetitive and allegedly frivolous nature of the filings did not create a reasonable basis to question the undersigned judge’s impartiality. The order noted that Bonilla had named Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton as a defendant in one case but, according to the order, had presented no legitimate basis for recusal.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.