Valles v. Attorney Gen.

• Decision Date: 18 November 2022
• Docket Number: 22-CV-1375 TWR (MDD)
• Parties: ANDREW VALLES, CDCR #BJ-6191, Plaintiff, v. ATTORNEY GENERAL of the UNITED STATES; ATTORNEY GENERAL of the STATE of CALIFORNIA; and ATTORNEY GENERAL of the STATE of UTAH, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California

ANDREW VALLES, CDCR #BJ-6191, Plaintiff,
v.
ATTORNEY GENERAL of the UNITED STATES; ATTORNEY GENERAL of the STATE of CALIFORNIA; and ATTORNEY GENERAL of the STATE of UTAH, Defendants.

No. 22-CV-1375 TWR (MDD)

United States District Court, S.D. California

November 18, 2022

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS AS BARRED BY 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) AND DISMISSING COMPLAINT WITHOUT PREJUDICE FOR FAILURE TO PAY FILING FEE (ECF No. 2)

Honorable Todd W. Robinson United States District Judge

On September 9, 2022, Plaintiff Andrew Valles, currently incarcerated at California Institution for Men in Chino, California, filed a civil rights Complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (ECF No. 1, “Compl.”) and a Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis (“IFP”) (ECF No. 2). Plaintiff did not pay the $402 filing fee. (See ECF 1.)

Plaintiff was convicted of four misdemeanor sex offenses in Utah in 2004 and was released from custody in 2006 but has since been reconvicted because he failed to comply with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2250. (See Compl. at 12-13.) He seeks an injunction voiding his registration requirement on the

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grounds that SORNA violates his First Amendment rights and separation of powers principles. (Id. at 12, 15-16.)

LEGAL STANDARD

All parties instituting any civil action, suit, or proceeding in a district court of the United States, except an application for writ of habeas corpus, must pay a filing fee of $402.^[1] See 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a). An action may proceed despite a plaintiff's failure to prepay the entire fee only if he is granted leave to proceed IFP pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a). See Rodriguez v. Cook, 169 F.3d 1176, 1177 (9th Cir. 1999). “All persons, not just prisoners, may seek IFP status.” Moore v. Maricopa Cnty. Sheriff's Off., 657 F.3d 890, 892 (9th Cir. 2011). Prisoners, however, “face an additional hurdle.” Id.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) amended section 1915 to preclude the privilege to proceed IFP in cases where the prisoner:

has, on 3 or more prior occasions, while incarcerated or detained in any facility, brought an action or appeal in a court of the United States that was dismissed on the grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, unless the prisoner is under imminent danger of serious physical injury

28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). “This subdivision is commonly known as the ‘three strikes' provision.” Andrews v. King, 398 F.3d 1113, 1116 n.1 (9th Cir. 2005). “Pursuant to § 1915(g), a prisoner with three strikes or more cannot proceed IFP.” Id.; see also Andrews v. Cervantes, 493 F.3d 1047, 1052 (9th Cir. 2007) [hereinafter Cervantes] (explaining that under the PLRA, “[p]risoners who have repeatedly brought unsuccessful suits may entirely be barred from IFP status under the three strikes rule[.]”). The objective of the PLRA is to further “the congressional goal of reducing frivolous prisoner litigation in federal court.” Tierney v. Kupers, 128 F.3d 1310, 1312 (9th Cir. 1997).

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“Strikes are prior cases or appeals, brought while the plaintiff was a prisoner, which were dismissed on the ground that they were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim,” Andrews, 398 F.3d at 1116 n.1 (internal quotations omitted), and include cases in which “the district court styles such dismissal as a denial of the prisoner's application to file the action without prepayment of the full filing fee,” O'Neal v. Price, 531 F.3d 1146, 1153 (9th Cir. 2008). When courts “review a dismissal to determine whether it counts as a strike, the style of the dismissal or the procedural posture is immaterial. Instead, the central question is whether the dismissal ‘rang the PLRA bells of frivolous, malicious, or failure to state a claim.'” El-Shaddai v. Zamora, 833 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir. 2016) (quoting Blakely v. Wards, 738 F.3d 607, 615 (4th Cir. 2013)).

Once a prisoner has accumulated three strikes, section...