STUBBS v. SKREPENAK

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

HENRY CHRISTOPHER STUBBS, III., :

Plaintiff, :

:

v. : CIVIL ACTION NO. 22-CV-0889

:

GREGORY A. SKREPENAK, et al., :

Defendants. :

MEMORANDUM

JONES, J., II JUNE 9, 2022

Plaintiff Henry Christopher Stubbs, III., a prisoner serving two consecutive life sentences

at SCI Huntingdon, filed this civil action against numerous Defendants including fifteen Third

Circuit Judges and a District Court Judge (“Federal Judicial Defendants”), and twenty-three state

and local officials, including Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges, Luzerne County judges and

local attorneys (“State and Local Defendants”).1 Stubbs raises a multitude of complaints

stemming from his post-conviction and habeas proceedings, as well as the denial of a certificate

of appealability and rehearing by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. For the following

reasons, the Court will dismiss Stubbs’s claims against the Federal Judicial Defendants pursuant

1 Defendants are divided into two (2) categories: (1) Federal Judicial Defendants Thomas L.

Ambro, Stephanos Bibas, Michael A. Chagares, Christopher C. Conner, Joseph A. Greenaway,

Jr., Thomas M. Hardiman, Kent A. Jordan, Cheryl Ann Krause, Paul B. Matey, Theodore A.

McKee, Richard L. Nygaard, Peter J. Phillips, David J. Porter, L. Felipe Restrepo, Patty Shwartz,

and D. Brooks Smith; and (2) State and Local Defendants Frank P. Barletta, Jacqueline M.

Carroll, Timothy M. Doherty, Alice Beck Dubow, James L. Haddock, John T.J. Kelly, David W.

Lupas, Luzerne County Office of the Clerk of Courts, Luzerne County Office of the District

Attorney, James L. McDonagle, Jr., Stephen A. Menn, Judith Ference Olson, Peter Paul

Olszewski, Jr., Jack A. Panella, Fred A. Pierantoni, III, Robert F. Reilly, Anthony Ross, Stefanie

J. Salavantis, Jacqueline O. Shogan, Gregory Skrepenak, Eugene B. Strassburger, Todd

Vonderheid, and Stephen A. Urban. Stubbs also names Luzerne County as a Defendant.

to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1), and will transfer the remaining claims against the State and Local

Defendants to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

I. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS2

A review of the public dockets reveals that, in 2003, a Luzerne County jury convicted

Stubbs of two counts of first-degree murder and various related charges. See Commonwealth v.

Stubbs, Docket No. CP-40-CR-844-2002 (C.P. Luzerne Cty.). Stubbs received two consecutive

life sentences. He unsuccessfully pursued post-conviction relief in the state courts and habeas

relief in federal court. The Honorable Christopher C. Conner of the United States District Court

presided over Stubbs’s habeas proceedings. See Stubbs v. Kauffman, No. 18-0128, 2019 WL

11816614 (M.D. Pa. May 7, 2019); Stubbs v. Curley, 10-1849 (M.D. Pa). The Third Circuit

Court of Appeals denied Stubbs’s requests for a certificate of appealability and rehearing. See

Stubbs v. Curley, et al., No. 13-1894 (3d Cir. 2013); Stubbs v. Superintendent SCI Huntingdon,

No. 19-2270 (3d Cir. 2019).

The gist of Stubbs’s claims in the instant lawsuit is that the State and Local Defendants,

along with the Federal Judicial Defendants, have been conspiring against him for over a decade

to deprive him of access to the courts by, among other things, ruling erroneously on his habeas

petitions, requests for certificates of appealability, petitions for rehearing, and his civil lawsuits.

In essence, he claims that the judicial process related to the review of his conviction has been

unfair as a result of this conspiracy. He seeks a declaratory judgment that his rights have been

2 The following allegations are taken from Stubbs’s Complaint and public dockets, of which the

Court may take judicial notice. See Buck v. Hampton Twp. Sch. Dist., 452 F.3d 256, 260 (3d Cir.

2006).

violated, reinstatement of his state and federal appellate rights, an injunction prohibiting any

conspiracy against his rights, and for this Court to review his reopened appeals. (Compl. at 48.)

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Stubbs seeks to proceed in forma pauperis in this matter. (See ECF Nos. 1, 3.) In Brown

v. Sage, 941 F.3d 655, 660 (3d Cir. 2019) (en banc), the United States Court of Appeals for the

Third Circuit announced a “flexible approach” that permits the screening of complaints filed by

prisoners pursuant 28 U.S.C. § 1915A before ruling on an in forma pauperis motion..

Section 1915A requires that the Court “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). In doing so, the Court must dismiss a complaint or any portion thereof that

“is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” Id. §

1915A(b)(1). A complaint is frivolous if it “lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact,”

Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989), and is legally baseless if it is “based on an

indisputably meritless legal theory.” Deutsch v. United States, 67 F.3d 1080, 1085 (3d Cir.

1995). To survive dismissal for failure to state a claim, 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) (quotations omitted). As Stubbs is proceeding pro se, the Court

construes his allegations liberally. Higgs v. Att’y Gen., 655 F.3d 333, 339 (3d Cir. 2011).

III. DISCUSSION

Stubbs’s claims in the instant matter concern alleged interference with his state and

federal appeals from denials of his post-conviction petitions and habeas petitions, respectively.

(Compl. at 51.) (“This action does not challenge what occurred at trial to convict the Plaintiff, or

pretrial investigation of crimes. It only challenges what occurred on appeal.”)3 For the reasons

set forth below, Stubbs’s claims against the Federal Judicial Defendants are not plausible. The

remaining claims against the state and local defendants arise out of events that took place in the

Middle District of Pennsylvania, and as such, Stubbs’s claims will be transferred to that venue

for further consideration.

A. Claims against Federal Judicial Defendants

Stubbs claims that District Court Judge Conner and Third Circuit Judges Ambro, Bibas,

Chagares, Conner, Greenaway, Hardiman, Jordan, Krause, Matey, McKee, Nygaard, Phillips,

Porter, Restrepo, Shwartz, and Smith violated his constitutional rights under § 1983 by

conspiring with various state and local actors to stymy his attempts to appeal in collateral

proceedings challenging his 2003 conviction and sentence. See, e.g., Compl. ECF No. 1 at 20-

26. “To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the

Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the alleged deprivation was

committed by a person acting under color of state law.” West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988).

Here, Stubbs names the Federal Judicial Defendants in their official capacities only. (ECF No. 1

at 20-21, 27.)

Official capacity claims are indistinguishable from claims against the entity that employs

the officials. See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165-66 (1985) (“Official-capacity suits . . .

‘generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer

is an agent.’”) (quoting Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 690, n. 55 (1978)).

The Federal Judicial Defendants serve as judges in the United States District Court for the

3 The Court adopts the pagination assigned to Stubbs’s submissions by the CM/ECF docketing

system.

Middle District of Pennsylvania and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Court. As such,

Stubbs’s official capacity claims against the Federal Judicial Defendants constitute claims

against the United States. See Bell v. Rossott, 227 F. Supp. 2d 315, 320 (M.D. Pa. 2002) (claim

against individual federal defendants sued in their official capacity are essentially claims against

the United States). It is well-settled that the United States is not a “person” subject to § 1983

liability. See e.g. Jachetta v. U.S., 653 F.3d 898, 908 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Accardi v. United

States, 435 F.2d 1239, 1241 (3d Cir. 1970)) (“The United States and other governmental entities

are not ‘persons’ within the meaning of Section 1983)). As such, Stubbs has not alleged a

plausible claim against the Federal Judicial Defendants.

Stubbs’s allegations of a conspiracy amongst the Federal Judicial Defendants and “state

actors” do not cure his pleading. To the contrary, the Federal Judicial Defendants, in their

official capacities, are not transformed into “persons” subject to § 1983 liability, despite their

claimed involvement in “an alleged conspiracy with state actors.” See Hindes v. FDIC, 137 F.3d

148, 158 (3d Cir. 1998) (“We find no authority to support the conclusion that a federal agency is

a ‘person’ subject to section 1983 liability, whether or not in an alleged conspiracy with state

actors.”). Therefore, Stubbs has not alleged a plausible § 1983 claim against the Federal Judicial

Defendants.4

4 Liberally construing Stubbs’s complaint as raising Bivens claims—the federal analog to §

1983—against the Federal Judicial Defendants, such claims similarly fail as Bivens claims

against the United States are barred by sovereign immunity, absent an explicit waiver. Lewal v.

Ali, 289 F. App’x 515, 516 (3d Cir. 2008) (per curiam); see also F.D.I.C. v. Meyer, 510 U.S.

471, 475 (1994) (“Absent a waiver, sovereign immunity shields the Federal Government and its

agencies from suit.”); Brooks v. Bledsoe, 682 F. App’x 164, 169 (3d Cir. 2017) (per curiam)

(“To the extent that Brooks is suing the BOP employees in their official capacities, his claim

fails as actions against prison officials in their official capacities are considered actions against

the United States, and Bivens claims against the United States are barred by sovereign immunity,

absent an explicit waiver.”). Furthermore, even if Stubbs’s Complaint could be liberally

construed to raise claims against the Federal Judicial Defendants in their individual capacities,

B. Claims against State and Local Defendants

Stubbs’s remaining claims are against state and local Luzerne County officials involved

in his criminal case as well as the Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges who considered his post-

conviction appeals. These claims are based entirely on events that took place in Luzerne County,

or arose from Stubbs’s Luzerne County arrest, prosecution, and conviction. Luzerne County is

located in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. 28 U.S.C. § 118(b). As there is no apparent

basis for venue in this district over these claims, the Court will transfer the remainder of Stubbs’s

Complaint to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where the

events giving rise to his claims occurred and where the remaining Defendants are located. See

28 U.S.C. §§ 1391(b), 1406(a); Lafferty v. St. Riel, 495 F.3d 72, 74-75 & n.3 (3d Cir. 2007)

(declining to disturb district court’s sue sponte transfer under § 1406(a)); Decker v. Dyson, 165

F. App’x 951, 954 n.3 (3d Cir. 2006) (district court may sua sponte transfer case under §

1406(a)).

those claims are barred by absolute judicial immunity—despite Stubbs’s protests to the

contrary—because they are based on the Federal Judicial Defendants’ judicial rulings in

proceedings over which they clearly had jurisdiction. See Azubuko v. Royal, 443 F.3d 302, 303-

04 (3d Cir. 2006) (per curiam). Although Stubbs does not seek damages, judicial immunity

extends to § 1983 claims against judicial officers for injunctive relief, since “‘injunctive relief

shall not be granted’ in an action brought against ‘a judicial officer for an act or omission taken

in such officer’s judicial capacity . . . unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory

relief was unavailable.’” Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1983). Stubbs does not claim that this

exception applies here. Moreover, he does not seek declaratory relief for the purpose it is

intended and instead, asks that previous state and federal judgments be reexamined. See

Witasick v. Heaphy, 425 F. App’x 137, 139 (3d Cir. 2011); Willaman v. Ferentino, 173 F. App’x

942, 943 (3d Cir. 2006); Donahue v. Superior Ct. of Pennsylvania, No. 18-01531, 2019 WL

923786, at *9 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 24, 2019), report and recommendation adopted, No. 18-1531, 2019

WL 913812 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 25, 2019).

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court will dismiss Stubbs’s claims against the Federal

Judicial Defendants with prejudice for failure to state a claim and as legally baseless pursuant to

28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1). Stubbs will not be permitted to file an amended complaint to address

his claims against the Federal Judicial Defendants because amendment would be futile. See

Grayson v. Mayview State Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 114 (3d Cir. 2002).

As there is no apparent basis for venue in this district over Stubbs’s claims against the

State and Local Defendants, the Court will transfer the remainder of Stubbs’s Complaint to the

United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Furthermore, the

Application to Proceed In Forma Pauperis (ECF No. 4) and Motion for Court Order Pursuant to

F.R.C.P. 7(b)(1) (ECF No. 6) shall be left to the discretion of the transferee court.

An appropriate Order follows.

BY THE COURT:

/s/ C. Darnell Jones, II, J.