Molina v. Michigan

1

GABRIEL MOLINA, Plaintiff, v. STATE OF MICHIGAN, et al., Defendants.

No. 1:24-cv-899

United States District Court, W.D. Michigan, Southern Division

September 17, 2024

Hon Hala Y. Jarbou

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

SALLY J. BERENS, U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Plaintiff Gabriel Molina filed his complaint in this case on September 3, 2024, against the State of Michigan; 62A District Court Judge Pablo Cortes; Unknown Parties #1 (named as 62A District Court security personnel); Unknown Parties #2 (named as 62A District Court Administrator); Unknown Parties #3 (named as 62A District Court Clerk); the Wyoming City Attorney's Office (named as Wyoming City Attorney); and Unknown Parties #4 (named as Wyoming Police Department Officers. Molina alleges constitutional violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Specifically, he alleges that Michigan Court Rule 8.115(C)(3)(b), which prohibits photographing, recording broadcasting, and live streaming an individual without that individual's consent within non-courtroom areas of a courthouse, violates the First Amendment and, as enforced against him, violated his rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. For relief, Molina seeks injunctive and declaratory relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

Having granted Molina's motion to proceed as a pauper (ECF No 6), I have conducted an initial review of the complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) to determine whether it is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. After conducting this review, I recommend that Molina's complaint be dismissed because it seeks relief against parties immune under the Eleventh Amendment and fails to state a claim.

I. Background

Molina alleges that he is a resident of Wyoming, Michigan, and has engaged in recording public officials in public areas of Michigan courthouses to ensure transparency and accountability in their performance of their duties. (ECF No. 1 at PageID.2-3.) It appears that Molina may be involved in a legal proceeding in the 62A District Court in Wyoming. In any event, he alleges that on August 30, 2024, he was recording clerk's office employees and/or other individuals in the clerk's office when security personnel, the court administrator, and the court clerk notified Molina that he was violating Michigan Court Rule 8.115(C)(3). Rule 8.115(C)(3)(b) provides: “In areas of a courthouse other than courtrooms, no one may photograph, record, broadcast, or live stream an individual without that individual's prior express consent.” A “courthouse ‘includes all areas within the exterior walls of a court building, or if the court does not occupy the entire building, that portion of the building used for the administration and operation of the court.'” Mich. Ct. R. 8.115(C)(2)(b). Molina alleges that on orders from the Wyoming City Attorney, officers of the Wyoming Police Department threatened him with arrest and trespassed him from the courthouse for violating Rule 8.115(C)(3)(b). (Id. at PageID.4.)

II. Discussion

A. Eleventh Amendment Immunity

Molina's claims against the State of Michigan are barred in this federal Court by the Eleventh Amendment. Regardless of the form of relief requested, the States and their departments are immune under the Eleventh Amendment from suit in the federal courts, unless the state has waived immunity, or Congress has expressly abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity by statute. See Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 98-101 (1984); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 782 (1978); O'Hara v. Wigginton, 24 F.3d 823, 826 (6th Cir. 1994). Congress has not expressly abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity by statute, Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 341 (1979), and the State of Michigan has not consented to civil rights suits in federal court. Abick v. Michigan, 803 F.2d 874, 877 (6th Cir. 1986). In addition, to the extent Molina sues Judge Cortes or the 62A District Court Clerk or Administrator in their official capacities for money damages, such claims are also barred by the Eleventh Amendment because Michigan's courts are arms of the State of Michigan entitled to immunity. See Pucci v. 19th District Court, 628 F.3d 752, 760-74 (6th Cir. 2010); Smith v. Skryzynski, No. 2:16-CV-12129, 2016 WL 3230701, at *3 (E.D. Mich. June 13, 2016) (“Eleventh Amendment immunity applies to state employees, such as prosecutors, judges, and court clerks who are sued in their official capacities.”); Salaam El v. City of Dearborn, No. 09-12136, 2010 WL 582773, at *6 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 18, 2010) (“[A]s a state employee sued in his official capacity, the suit is really against the State of Michigan and, therefore, Judge Hultgren is entitled to immunity from suit pursuant to the Eleventh Amendment and the doctrine of sovereign immunity.”).

B. Failure to State a Claim

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a claim must be dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted unless the “[f]actual allegations [are] enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint's allegations are true.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 545 (2007) (internal citations and footnote omitted).

As the Supreme Court has held, to satisfy this rule, a complaint must contain “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). This plausibility standard “is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. If the complaint simply “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.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). As the Court further observed:

Two working principles underlie our decision in Twombly. First, the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice. Rule 8 marks a notable and generous departure from the hypertechnical, code-pleading regime of a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions. Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss. Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will, as the Court of Appeals observed, be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. But where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged- but it has not “show[n]”-“that the pleader is entitled to relief.”

Id. at 678-79 (internal citations omitted).

Because Molina is proceeding pro se, the Court must construe his pleading more liberally than it does for pleadings drafted by lawyers. Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). But this liberal pleading standard “is not without its limits, and does not ‘abrogate basic pleading essentials in pro se suits.'” Clark v. Johnston, 413 Fed.Appx. 804, 817 (6th Cir. 2011) (quoting Wells v. Brown, 891 F.2d 591, 594 (6th Cir. 1989)). Stated differently, “[l]iberal construction does not require a court to conjure allegations on a litigant's behalf.” Erwin v. Edwards, 22 Fed.Appx. 579, 580 (6th Cir. 2001). To require otherwise “would not only strain judicial resources . . . but would also transform the district court from its legitimate advisory role to the improper role of an advocate seeking out the strongest arguments and most successful strategies for a party.” Beaudett v. City of Hampton, 775 F.2d 1274, 1278 (4th Cir. 1985).

1. First Amendment

To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the federal Constitution or laws and must show that the deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988); Street v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 102 F.3d 810, 814 (6th Cir. 1996). Because Section 1983 is a method for vindicating federal rights, not a source of substantive rights itself, the first step in an action under Section 1983 is to identify the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed. Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 271 (1994).

In Count One, Molina alleges that Rule 8.115(C)(3)(b) violates the First Amendment. The initial task in analyzing Molina's First Amendment claim is identifying the theory he asserts-a freedom-of-expression claim or an access-to-information claim. See S.H.A.R.K. v. Metro Parks Serving Summit Cnty., 499 F.3d 553, 559 (6th Cir. 2007). His assertion that “[t]he First Amendment protects the right to gather information about government officials, including the right to record them in public spaces” (ECF No. 1 at PageID.5), suggests that he asserts that the rule violates his right of access under the First Amendment. More specifically, he contends that he has a First Amendment right to “record public officials in spaces where they perform their duties” (Id. at PageID.1), and that Rule 8.115(C)(3)(b) impinges that right. The cases he cites, Turner v. Driver, 848 F.3d 678 (5th Cir. 2017), and Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), do not support his position under the facts he alleges, as both cases concerned the right of an individual to record police officers performing their duties in public. Neither case...