Lucas v. Allen, Case No. 3:14-cv-29289
| Decision Date | 16 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:14-cv-29289 |
| Court | United States District Courts. 4th Circuit. Southern District of West Virginia |
| Parties | ANGEL MARIE LUCAS; A'MYLAH A'REEN-LUCAS SIMMONS; A'MYREON A'MERH-LUCAS; ROC'KET SKY'LAR HARRINGTON, Plaintiffs, v. FAYE ALLEN; B. ADKINS; M. TERRY; CABELL COUNTY PROSECUTORS; CABELL COUNTY MAGISTRATE WOLFEL; CABELL COUNTY JUDGE FURGERSON; HUNTINGTON POLICE KOLHER; HUNTINGTON DETECTIVE KOFFEE; WESTERN REGIONAL JAIL—"MR. CRAWFORD, MR. ALDRIDGE, MS. STEPP;" and CHILD PROTECTION SERVICE—"MS. LAUREN S. and DIRECTOR," Defendants. |
Pending before the Court is Plaintiff Angel Lucas's Application to Proceed Without Prepayment of Fees and Costs, (ECF No. 1), which she filed contemporaneously with a pro se Complaint asserted under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (ECF No. 2). This matter is assigned to the Honorable Robert C. Chambers, United States District Judge, and by Standing Order has been referred to the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge for the submission of proposed findings of fact and recommendations for disposition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). Given that this Court clearly cannot provide the relief sought by Plaintiff, the undersigned RECOMMENDS that the presiding DistrictJudge DENY Plaintiff's Application to Proceed Without Prepayment of Fees and Costs, (ECF No. 1), DISMISS the Complaint, without prejudice, and remove this action from the docket of the Court. In conjunction with the dismissal, the undersigned further RECOMMENDS that the presiding District Judge DENY an assortment of motions that have been filed by Plaintiff since her submission of the complaint, including the following: (a) Plaintiff's Motion to Dismiss, (ECF No. 8); (b) Plaintiff's Motion for Extra Time to Mail Discovery, (ECF No. 10); and (c) Plaintiff's Motion for Protective Order, (ECF No. 14).
Plaintiff Angel Marie Lucas ("Lucas"), a pretrial detainee at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia, (ECF No. 12), filed the instant action on December 3, 2014. At that time, Lucas was incarcerated at the Western Regional Jail in Cabell County, West Virginia. In the Complaint, Lucas alleges that on April 9, 2014 she was wrongfully arrested and charged with two counts of wanton endangerment. (ECF No. 2 at 4). The charges stemmed from an incident that occurred three days earlier, when Lucas was involved in a shoot-out on a residential street in Huntington, West Virginia.1 She was taken before a judge, who set an excessive and discriminatory "cash only" bond of $100,000, after seeing photographs of Lucas that Huntington police officers and detectives had taken from Lucas's Facebook page. (Id.). Lucas's complaint is not entirely clear, but at some point she alleges that she was released on home confinement. (Id. at 5-6). She contends that Defendant Faye Allen, a Cabell County Circuit Court Clerk, subsequently made a false report claiming that Lucas hadthreatened and intimidated a city official. As a result of this report, Lucas was charged with a violation of home confinement and was taken before Judge Furgerson [sic]. She claims that Judge Furgerson [sic] banned her from the Cabell County courthouse.
Lucas alleges that thereafter Child Protective Services ("CPS") became involved in her business when some unknown person falsely reported that her three minor children were left home alone while she was incarcerated. (ECF No. 2 at 6). At the same time, one of Lucas's daughters was arrested on a bench warrant related to a 2013 charge that Lucas contends had been resolved in 2013, but her daughter was handcuffed, shackled, and taken to a juvenile detention facility nonetheless. (Id. at 7).
Lucas was released from custody on September 24, 2014, and was rearrested on October 1, 2014 for child neglect and abuse with injury after her son accused her of beating him with a belt and stomping on his head. (Id. at 7). Lucas appeared in Cabell County Magistrate Court on the neglect and abuse charge, believing that she had a deal worked out with CPS that would prevent her from being charged with a felony, but the deal was taken off the table before it could be approved by the court. Lucas has remained in custody since that time and was transferred from the Western Regional Jail to the Southwestern Regional Jail and then to the Southern Regional Jail after protesting about the conditions of confinement, including her difficulties with other inmates.
Lucas now complains that CPS has taken her children and placed them with strangers, rather than putting them in her mother's care or in the care of her daughter, Roc'ket's, father. (ECF No. 2 at 8). She also complains that she told CPS she does not want her son, A'myreon, on any medication, but he has been placed on medication anyway.
Lucas believes that she has been treated unfairly, and both she and her family have been targeted for discriminatory treatment by the defendants. She contends that reports have been falsified; judicial officers have conspired with police officers and CPS workers; the sound on the recording of her preliminary hearing was purposely destroyed to conceal the state's lack of evidence; and the state court is dragging its feet in resolving her cases. She maintains that she is a victim of "invidious discrimination," prejudice, and stereotyping in a small town where everyone knows one another.2 (Id. at 5, 10).
As far as relief, Lucas asks the Court to "do what needs to be done." (Id. at 5). She further seeks her "rights as a human being," as well as an unspecified amount of "compensation." (Id.). Finally, Lucas requests that her legal matters be transferred from Cabell County to Charleston. (ECF No. 2 at 10).
On January 6, 2015, Lucas filed a document entitled "Motion to Dismiss." (ECF No. 8). In this filing, Lucas alleges that her children have been kidnapped by CPS, and both she and her children are the victims of false imprisonment. (Id. at 1). She asks the Court to release her children from the custody of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources ("WVDHHR"), and requests a change of venue of all outstanding matters to the United States District Court for Southern District of West Virginia, so this Court can hear and determine them. (Id. at 2).
On January 28, 2015, Lucas filed a variety of "discovery" materials with theCourt.3 (ECF Nos. 15, 15-1). These documents consist primarily of copies of motions Lucas has filed in the state court, letters she has written to the state court judge and to the WVDHHR, and other related notes. In addition, the filing includes a petition filed by the WVDHHR to terminate Lucas's custody of her children. A review of these materials confirms that Lucas's claims in this Court revolve primarily around her desire to have her pending criminal charges and the ongoing proceedings initiated by the WVDHHR heard in federal court.
On February 5, 2015, Lucas filed additional documents with this Court, asking the presiding District Judge to subpoena the case file of her former attorney and to check into the status of the "Article 1 court" to see why the Article 1 judge was taking so long to resolve her cases. (ECF No. 13). On February 13, 2015, Lucas sent a letter to the presiding District Judge requesting that the discovery materials she sent in late January be sealed, and seeking his assistance in having her children placed in her mother's custody. (ECF No. 14 at 4). Lucas also suggests that the federal court needs to take its "rightful jurisdiction" over her criminal cases. (Id.).
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915, the Court must screen each case in which a prisoner4 seeks to proceed in forma pauperis (without prepayment of fees and costs). The Court must dismiss the case, or any part of it, if the complaint is "frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted" or "seeks monetary relief from adefendant who is immune from such relief." 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b). A case is "frivolous" if it lacks "an arguable basis either in law or fact." Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989). A case lacks an arguable basis in law when it relies upon an indisputably meritless legal theory, Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 112 S.Ct. 1728, 118 L.Ed.2d 340 (1992); Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), and it lacks an arguable basis in fact when the supporting allegations describe "fantastic or delusional scenarios." Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 328. Similarly, a complaint fails to state a compensable claim when viewing the factual allegations in the complaint as true and in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the complaint fails to contain enough facts to state a claim that is plausible on its face. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). The Supreme Court explained the "plausibility" standard in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, stating:
A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. The plausibility standard is not akin to a "probability requirement," but asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. Where a complaint pleads facts that are "merely consistent with" a defendant's liability, it "stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of 'entitlement to relief.
556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556-57 (internal citations omitted). Determining whether a complaint states a facially plausible claim for relief is a "context-specific task that requires the court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679, citing Iqbal v. Hasty, 490 F.3d 143, 157-158 (2nd Cir. 2007). While the Court is required to accept as true the factual allegations asserted in the complaint,...
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