Zey v. South Carolina

• Decision Date: 03 October 2011
• Docket Number: C/A No. 2:11-2481-CMC- BM
• Parties: Michael P. Zey, Plaintiff, v. State of South Carolina; North Charleston Police Department; Ninth Judicial Circuit, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

Michael P. Zey, Plaintiff,

v.State of South Carolina; North Charleston Police Department; Ninth Judicial Circuit, Defendants.

C/A No. 2:11-2481-CMC- BM

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA

October 3, 2011

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

This is a civil action filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by Plaintiff, Michael P. Zey ("Plaintiff"), an inmate in the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville, Mississippi. Under established local procedure in this judicial district, a careful review has been made of the pro se pleading pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, which requires the court to "review, before docketing, if feasible or, in any event, as soon as practicable after docketing, a complaint in a civil action in which a prisoner seeks redress from a governmental entity, or officer or employee of a governmental entity." 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a).

Pro se complaints and petitions are held to a less stringent standard than those drafted by attorneys, Gordon v. Leeke, 574 F.2d 1147, 1151 (4th Cir. 1978), and a federal district court is charged with liberally construing a complaint or petition filed by a pro se litigant to allow the development of a potentially meritorious case. See Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 9-10 (1980); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319 (1972); Fine v. City of New York, 529 F.2d 70, 74 (2nd Cir. 1975). However,the requirement of liberal construction does not mean that the Court can ignore a clear failure in the pleading to allege facts which set forth a claim currently cognizable in a federal district court. See Weller v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 901 F.2d 387 (4th Cir. 1990). Such is the case here.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This case was transferred to this Court from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (see Order, ECF No. 2). Based on the Order of Transfer, the case has been docketed in this Court as "Zey v. State of South Carolina, et al." However, a careful review of the pleading demonstrates that Plaintiff's Complaint is actually an attempt to litigate alleged constitutional violations of federal and state extradition laws on behalf of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the State of Georgia. Plaintiff's handwritten Complaint, which is not submitted on a state prisoner complaint form, but on a page entitled "In the United States District Court Northern District of Georgia," actually lists the "United States District Court State of Georgia" in the case's caption in the position where the plaintiff's name should appear. The first sentence of Plaintiff's "Preliminary Statement" is:

This is a civil action filed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the State of Georgia against the State of South Carolina the North Charleston Police Department and the Ninth Judicial Circuit for violating, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3182, 3183, 3187, 3142 and Article IV Section 2 of the United States Constitution, federal extradition and state extradition laws.

ECF No. 1, p. 1 (emphasis added). Plaintiff's "Preliminary Statement" goes on to allege that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has jurisdiction and venue of the

case, and that the case:

raises a question of interpretation as to whether the State of South Carolina and its agents without lawful authority invoked the ancient 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in part or a malicious arrest of a person who was illegally detained falsely imprisoned inMississippi no warrant or extradition signed so that agents from South Carolina could kidnap him when he was not fleeing from justice he had committed no crime he was wanted for questioning by the North Charleston Police Department them violating his Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

ECF No. 1, p. 2. Plaintiff further alleges:

What laws in respect to your state, federal and state were violated, the Sheriff's Department in Charleston County, South Carolina won't respond. If you should decide or set forth a ruling against them it would assist me in my civil litigation against them filed on this date.¹ Address the United States District Court for the Southern District of South Carolina in Charleston South Carolina, requesting of that, their court to make Charleston County South Carolina make a answer as why they violated your federal and state laws unconstitutionally. Send me a copy of your ruling and direct response against them. States involved against Charleston County South Carolina for violating your territorial state boundaries, Alabama and Georgia parties involved.

ECF No. 1, p. 3 (emphasis added). Plaintiff then certifies that he "personally mailed a exact copy of this civil action to the United States District Courts and Attorney General's of Alabama and Georgia, United States of America by MDOC Institutional Mail, with exhibits attached." Id. The balance of the Complaint filed in the instant case is comprised of exhibits A - C, C-1, C-2, and J; Affidavit of the Facts 1992-1993; exhibits D and E; Affidavit Against Robyn Salisbuty (also labeled "I" and "I-2"); and exhibit Z, which set forth Plaintiff's allegations of the violations of his constitutional rights. See ECF No. 1, p. 4-19. Exhibits C-1 and C-2 are repeated at ECF No. 1, p. 20-21.

DISCUSSION

To the extent that Plaintiff is attempting to state a claim on behalf of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the State of Georgia, he cannot do so. The United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that "the competence of a layman representing himself" is "clearly too limited to allow him to risk the rights of others." Oxendine v. Williams, 509 F.2d 1405, 1407 (4th Cir. 1975) (holding that a prisoner, proceeding pro se, cannot represent other prisoners in a class action). See Hummer v. Dalton, 657 F.2d 621, 623 n. 2, 625-26 (4th Cir. 1981) (prisoner's suit is "confined to redress for violation of his own personal rights and not one by him as a knight-errant for all prisoners"). In federal court a party has the right to plead and conduct their own case, Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 830, n.39 (1975), and in the criminal context a defendant has a constitutional right to represent himself under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. Section 1654 of Title 28 of the United States Code expressly provides: "In all courts of the United States the parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel as, by the rules of such courts, respectively, are permitted to manage and conduct causes therein." (emphasis added). However, there is no similar constitutional right of a layman to represent others, particularly a State or a United States District Court. See Phillips v. Tobin, 548 F.2d 408, 411 (2nd Cir 1976); Guajardo v. Luna, 432 F.2d 1324, 1325 (5th Cir. 1970); Turner v. American Bar Ass'n, 407 F. Supp. 451, 475-77 (N.D.Tex. 1975). Consequently, Plaintiff's Complaint, filed in this case on behalf of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the State of Georgia, should be dismissed because it fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted by this Court.

Additionally, Plaintiff has failed to even request any relief or suggest to this Court any remedy for the alleged violations. Plaintiff's Complaint simply asks this Court to "request[] of . . . their court [to] make Charleston County South Carolina . . . answer as [to] why they violated your federal and state laws unconstitutionally." ECF No. 1, p. 3. Were this Court to find that Plaintiff's rights have been violated, but order no remedy, it would, in effect, be rendering an advisory opinion. Such action is barred by Article III of the Constitution. Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401 (1975); Boston Chapter, NAACP v. Beecher, 716 F.2d 931, 933 (1st Cir. 1983); see Norvell v. Sangre de Cristo Dev. Co., 519 F.2d 370, 375 (10th Cir. 1975) (federal courts do not render advisory opinions). The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals faced an analogous situation in Pub. Serv. Co. v. EPA, 225 F.3d 1144 (10th Cir. 2000). In that case, addressing the plaintiff's failure to request specific relief, the court stated:

This court would violate Article III's prohibition against advisory opinions were it to do that which [the plaintiff] requests, i.e., issue a mere statement that the EPA's interpretation and application of the law was incorrect without ordering some related relief.

Id. at 1148 n. 4 (citing U. S. v. Burlington N. R.R., 200 F.3d 679, 699 (10th Cir. 1999)). Cf. James Madison Ltd. by Hecht v. Ludwig, 82 F.3d 1085, 1092 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (holding that, if the court were barred from granting the requested relief, its decision "would be an advisory opinion barred by Article III of the Constitution"). It is well settled that federal courts performing their duties of construing pro se pleadings are not required to be "mind readers" or "advocates" for state prisoners or pro se litigants. Beaudett v. City of Hampton, 775 F.2d 1274, 1278 (4th Cir. 1985); Gordon v. Leeke, 574 F.2d 1147, 1151 (4th Cir. 1978). Hence, in the absence of a request for relief fromPlaintiff, the Complaint filed in this case is frivolous and subject to summary dismissal on this additional ground.

Even if Plaintiff's Complaint is liberally construed as an attempt by Plaintiff to bring his own claims against the Defendants for Plaintiff's alleged wrongful arrest, extradition,² conviction, and imprisonment, such claims are still subject to summary dismissal. First, a claim for relief under § 1983 must sufficiently allege that the plaintiff was injured by "the deprivation of any [of his or her] rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the [United States] Constitution and laws" by a "person" acting "under color of state law." See 42 U.S.C. § 1983; Monell v. Dep't. of Soc. Serv., 436 U.S. 658, 690 & n.55 (1978) (noting that for purposes of § 1983 a "person" includes individuals and "bodies politic and corporate"); see...