United States District Court for the District of Alaska, 2023

Coleman v. The City and Borough of Juneau

United States District Court for the District of Alaska · Decided December 18, 2023

Trial Court Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA WILLIAM LORENZO COLEMAN, Plaintiff, v. THE CITY AND BOROUGH OF Case No. 1:23-cv-00002-SLG-KFR JUNEAU, et al., Defendants.

ORDER RE AMENDED REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION TO DISMISS AMENDED COMPLAINT WITH PREJUDICE Before the Court at Docket 11 is Plaintiff Coleman’s Amended Complaint.

The matter was referred to the Honorable Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon. At Docket 16, Judge Reardon issued an Amended Report and Recommendation to Dismiss Amended Complaint with Prejudice in which he recommended that the Amended Complaint be dismissed with prejudice and that all pending motions be denied as moot. Thereafter, Mr. Coleman filed “Motion in Opposition” to the Amended Report at Docket 17, which this Court will treat as his objections to the report pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1).

The matter is now before this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). That statute provides that a district court “may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge.”1 A court is

1 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). to “make a de novo determination of those portions of the magistrate judge’s report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made.”2 However, § 636(b)(1) does not “require district court review of a magistrate’s factual or legal conclusions, under a de novo or any other standard, when neither party objects to those findings.”3 The Magistrate Judge recommended that the Court dismiss with prejudice the Amended Complaint and that all pending motions be denied as moot. Although Mr. Coleman’s objections are difficult to discern, it appears that he is asserting that the Magistrate Judge erred to the extent that he may have assumed that the Plaintiff’s citation for a pedestrian signal infraction arose from the same September 25, 2020 incident that is the subject of this action. But the Magistrate Judge cleared distinguished the charges that were the subject of this action that were dismissed in the summer of 2021 from the non-criminal case that was closed in February 2023.4 And to the extent Plaintiff is objecting to evidentiary rulings in the underlying criminal case, that cannot serve as the basis for a Section 1983 complaint for damages in federal court. In addition, the arbitrary and capricious standard does not apply to a district judge’s review of a magistrate judge’s recommendation; rather, the review standard is as set forth in the preceding 2 Id. Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 150 (1985); see also United States v. Reyna-Tapia, 328 F.3d 1114, 1121 (9th Cir. 2003). 4 See Docket 16 at 2, n.3.

Case No. 1:23-cv-00004-SLG-KFR, Coleman v. The City and Borough of Juneau, et al. paragraph of this order. The Court has otherwise reviewed the Amended Report and Recommendation and agrees with its analysis. Accordingly, the Court adopts the Amended Report and Recommendation, and IT IS ORDERED that the Amended Complaint is DISMISSED with prejudice. All pending motions are DENIED as moot. The Clerk of Court shall enter a final judgment accordingly.

DATED this 18th day of December, 2023, at Anchorage, Alaska.

/s/ Sharon L. Gleason UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case No. 1:23-cv-00004-SLG-KFR, Coleman v. The City and Borough of Juneau, et al.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.