Wood v. Commonwealth of Virginia

• Decision Date: 04 January 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 71-C-1-L.
• Citation: 320 F. Supp. 1227
• Parties: Don F. WOOD, Plaintiff, v. The COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, the Corporation Court of the City of Lynchburg, and the Commonwealth Attorney of the City of Lynchburg, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia

320 F. Supp. 1227

Don F. WOOD, Plaintiff, v. The COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, the Corporation Court of the City of Lynchburg, and the Commonwealth Attorney of the City of Lynchburg, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 71-C-1-L.

United States District Court, W. D. Virginia, Lynchburg Division.

January 4, 1971.

Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., for respondent.

OPINION AND JUDGMENT

DALTON, Chief Judge.

The complaint in this action, entitled a "Petition for Order of Judgment," was filed in forma pauperis and transferred to this district by order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The thrust of the action is a suit for damages because of the deprivation of civil rights. No basis for jurisdiction is specified but the court will construe the petition as an action under 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1983 and 1985. Jurisdiction is conferred upon this court by 28 U.S.C.A. § 1343.

The plaintiff is currently imprisoned pursuant to convictions rendered in the Corporation Court of the City of Lynchburg for third offense petty larceny (November 6, 1969), fourth offense petty larceny (July 14, 1970), and credit card fraud (September 14, 1970). He alleges that he is innocent of any offense, although he pled guilty to third offense petty larceny, and that his convictions are the result of the deliberate denial of effective counsel. He also makes broad allegations that the Commonwealth Attorney is the "dictator" of the Corporation Court and that he administers a discriminatory and dual standard of justice. These same general allegations have been raised in other petitions for writs of habeas corpus and/or mandamus submitted to this court by the plaintiff over the last several months. All of these prior petitions, D.C., 317 F.Supp. 1210, have been dismissed without prejudice because of a failure to exhaust state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254.

The actions against the Commonwealth and the Corporation Court of the City of Lynchburg should be dismissed without an examination of the merits of the complaint. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed. 2d 492 (1961) determined that the word "person" in 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 does not include municipal corporations. This court likewise believes that it also does not include either a state or a state court. If liability is sought to be imposed upon the Judge of the Corporation Court, the plaintiff is concluded by the Supreme Court's later holding that judges are immune from suit under § 1983. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967).

The complaint contains numerous denunciations of the Commonwealth Attorney but few actual allegations of fact are made against him personally. The gist of his allegations is that the three different attorneys appointed for him in various proceedings have all been incompetent and that the court deliberately denied him effective assistance of counsel. It is alleged that these attorneys either coerced or attempted to coerce him into pleading guilty to all charges when he was innocent of any crime.

When the plaintiff was charged with third offense petty larceny, the Municipal Court advised him that he must either employ a lawyer or have the court appoint one for him. He alleges that he talked with a friend who went to the Commonwealth Attorney and then came back with two possible names with "(t)he implication * * * that the suggestion came from the Commonwealth Attorney himself." The plaintiff alleges that he hired one of the two suggested attorneys to represent him at the preliminary hearing and that this attorney was appointed to represent him at trial when he was unable to pay the quoted additional fee. Clearly these allegations fail to indicate that the Commonwealth Attorney participated in a deliberate denial of effective counsel. The remainder of his...