Cox v. Civil Courthouse State Judges
| Citation | 544 F.Supp.3d 1180 |
| Decision Date | 27 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV 20-0561 JB/KRS,CIV 20-0561 JB/KRS |
| Parties | Jesse COX, Plaintiff, v. CIVIL COURTHOUSE STATE JUDGES AND STAFF; State of New Mexico DOC Case Managers DOC; Public Defenders Office Public Defenders & Secretarys and OMS Offender Management System State of New Mexico, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
Jesse Cox, Northwest New Mexico Correctional Center, Grants, New Mexico, Plaintiff pro se.
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on the Plaintiff's (i) Complaint for Violation of Civil Rights, filed September 9, 2020 (Doc. 1)("Complaint"); (ii) Application to Proceed in District Court Without Prepaying Fees or Costs, filed September 9, 2020 (Doc. 2); (iii) Motion for Evidentiary Hearing, September 10, 2020 (Doc. 6); (iv) Motion to Supplement and Re[ ]vision Record, filed September 22, 2020 (Doc. 9); and (v) and Motion for Status, filed October 23, 2020 (Doc. 10). The Court concludes that (i) the Compliant does not state a claim upon which relief can be granted, because it is barred by judicial and sovereign immunity and Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) ; (ii) it will grant Plaintiff Jesse Cox leave to proceed in forma pauperis and will waive an initial partial payment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(a) and (b), based on Plaintiff's Application to Proceed and his 6-month inmate accounts statement; (iii) the Motion for Evidentiary Hearing is moot; (iv) the Motion to Supplement and Re[ ]vision Record is moot; and (v) and Motion for Status is moot.
Plaintiff Jesse Cox is a prisoner incarcerated at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility. See Complaint at 2. Cox has a lengthy criminal history in New Mexico.1 This is the fifth civil rights case he has brought in this Court challenging his various criminal prosecutions. See Cox v. Albuquerque District Attorneys Office, No. CV 19-00689 KWR/KBM; Cox v. Albuquerque Police Department; No. CV 19-00690 RB/KBM; Cox v. Albuquerque Police Department, No. CV 19-00770 WJ/KK; Cox v. Bernalillo County, No. CV 20-00535 JCH/GJF.
In this case, he challenges his state criminal prosecutions, alleging:
[T]he timeline for around twelve years now on this insane absurd abusive criminal behavior they are presenting to attack my freedom, and slander and persecute my image to the further points of no repair, when I'm a good person.
Complaint at 9. Cox claims that various law enforcement, judicial, and correctional officers have lied, have improperly incarcerated him based on fake charges, and have failed to release him when the charges in his criminal cases were dismissed. See Complaint at 4, 5-7, 8-10, 11, 13-14. In addition to generally challenging his criminal prosecutions over a twelve-year period, Cox specifically identifies two New Mexico criminal cases, No. D-202-CR-2019-03993 and No. D-202-CR-2020-00273. See Complaint at 5. In his prayer for relief, Cox requests:
To give me the restitution I'm owed at 1500$ or 3,000$ a day for the 8 years when I proved very easily with the proof so easily accessible, and release me from custody of D.O.C. ASAP upon notice of a release order to be printed by the court, that I'll get a fair amount of what[’]s owed to me added to $100,000,000.
The Court has reviewed the official record in Cox's state court proceedings through the New Mexico Supreme Court's Secured Online Public Access ("SOPA"). The Court takes judicial notice of the official New Mexico court records in the State of New Mexico, County of Bernalillo, Second Judicial District case numbers D-202-CR-2019-03993 and D-202-CR-2020-00273. See United States v. Ahidley, 486 F.3d 1184, 1192 n.5 (10th Cir. 2007) (); Shoulders v. Dinwiddie, 2006 WL 2792671, at *3 (W.D. Okla. 2006) (Cauthron, J.)( that a court may take judicial notice of state court records available on the world wide web including docket sheets in district courts); Stack v. McCotter, 79 F. App'x 383, 391-92 (10th Cir. 2003) (unpublished opinion)( that a state district court's docket sheet is an official court record subject to judicial notice under rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence ).
In State v. Jesse James Delyle Cox, No. D-202-CR-2019-03993, Cox pled guilty and was convicted on two counts of Attempt to Commit a Felony (Possession of a Controlled Substance. As part of his plea agreement, two additional counts of Possession of Drug Paraphernalia were dismissed by the prosecutor. See State v. Jesse James Delyle Cox, No. D-202-CR-2019-03993. In State v. Jesse Cox, No. D-202-CR-2020-00273, Cox similarly pled guilty to, and was convicted of Possession of a Controlled Substance. In April 2020, a Judgement and Sentence was entered in both cases, sentencing Cox to a term of nine years and six months, with one year and six months suspended for a total term of incarceration of eight years in the New Mexico Department of Corrections. See State v. Jesse James Delyle Cox, No. D-202-CR-2019-03993; State v. Jesse Cox, No. D-202-CR-2020-00273. The convictions and sentences in the two cases have never been overturned or set aside.
Rule 12(b)(6) authorizes a court to dismiss a complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). "The nature of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion tests the sufficiency of the allegations within the four corners of the complaint after taking those allegations as true." Mobley v. McCormick, 40 F.3d 337, 340 (10th Cir. 1994). The complaint's sufficiency is a question of law, and, when considering a rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court must accept as true all well-pled factual allegations in the complaint, view those allegations in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. See Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 322, 127 S.Ct. 2499, 168 L.Ed.2d 179 (2007) (); Smith v. United States, 561 F.3d 1090, 1098 (10th Cir. 2009) .
A complaint need not set forth detailed factual allegations, yet a "pleading that offers labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action" is insufficient. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). "Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937. "Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact)." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955.
To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff's complaint must contain sufficient facts that, if assumed to be true, state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ; Mink v. Knox, 613 F.3d 995, 1000 (10th Cir. 2010). "A claim has facial plausibility when the pleaded factual content allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). "Thus, the mere metaphysical possibility that some plaintiff could prove some set of facts in support of the pleaded claims is insufficient; the complainant must give the court reason to believe that this plaintiff has a reasonable likelihood of mustering factual support for these claims." Ridge at Red Hawk, LLC v. Schneider, 493 F.3d 1174, 1177 (10th Cir. 2007) (emphasis omitted). The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has stated:
"[P]lausibility" in this context must refer to the scope of the allegations in a complaint: if they are so general that they encompass a wide swath of conduct, much of it innocent, then the plaintiffs "have not nudged their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible." The allegations must be enough that, if assumed to be true, the plaintiff plausibly (not just speculatively) has a claim for relief.
Robbins v. Oklahoma, 519 F.3d 1242, 1247 (10th Cir. 2008) (citations omitted)(quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). See Gallegos v. Bernalillo Cty. Board of Cty. Comm'rs, 278 F. Supp. 3d 1245, 1259 (D.N.M. 2017) (Browning, J.).
"When a party presents matters outside of the pleadings for consideration, as a general rule ‘the court must either exclude the material or treat the motion as one for summary judgment.’ " Brokers’ Choice of Am., Inc. v. NBC Universal, Inc., 861 F.3d 1081, 1103 (10th Cir. 2017) (quoting Alexander v. Oklahoma, 382 F.3d 1206, 1214 (10th Cir. 2004) ). There are three limited exceptions to this general principle: (i) documents that the complaint incorporates by reference, see Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. at 322, 127 S.Ct. 2499 ; (ii) "documents referred to in the complaint if the documents are central to the plaintiff's claim and the parties do not dispute the documents’ authenticity," Jacobsen v. Deseret Book Co., 287 F.3d 936, 941 (10th Cir. 2002) ; and (iii) "matters of which a court may...
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