Farabee v. Feix , 119 F. App'x 455 ( 2005 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 03-7656
BRIAN DAMON FARABEE,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
DOCTOR FEIX; DOCTOR MITCHELL, Psychiatrist,
Central State Forensic Unit,
Defendants - Appellees,
and
DINWIDDIE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURTS; COMMONWEALTH
OF VIRGINIA,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Henry Coke Morgan, Jr., District
Judge. (CA-02-654)
Argued: October 26, 2004 Decided: January 6, 2005
Before WIDENER, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Brad Richard Newberg, ARNOLD & PORTER, L.L.P., Washington, D.C.,
for Appellant. John David McChesney, RAWLS & MCNELIS, P.C.,
Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee Doctor Feix.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
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PER CURIAM:
Brian Damon Farabee appeals the district court’s dismissal of
his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against Dr. Jeffrey Feix for failure to
state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The district court held that
Farabee’s claim relating to forcible medication was barred by the
Supreme Court’s ruling in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).
For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court’s ruling.
I.
Farabee has suffered from psychiatric problems since childhood
and entered his first psychiatric institute at the age of ten.
Over the last fifteen years, Farabee received treatment in more
than twenty mental institutions. When Farabee was charged with
arson in 1998, a Virginia state court found him not guilty by
reason of insanity (NGRI) and ordered him committed to a state
hospital.
This appeal arises from more recent state criminal charges
against Farabee for malicious wounding of hospital staff. Farabee
pled guilty to these charges and was sentenced accordingly.
Farabee subsequently brought this § 1983 suit pro se against Dr.
Feix and other defendants, seeking damages for his allegedly
unlawful incarceration. In his initial complaint, Farabee alleged
that having previously been adjudicated NGRI, his incarceration in
a prison facility was improper. Farabee later filed a motion for
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default judgment, in which he alleged that his guilty plea was
invalid in part because he was “being involuntarily/forcibly
administered (by syringe), anti-psychotic/psychotropic drugs . . .
by [a psychiatrist at Central State Hospital and] was vulnerable to
the drugs impairing [his] ability to follow the proceedings against
[him], to testify and be cross-examined, and to communicate
effectively with counsel.” J.A. 18. In response to a motion by
Dr. Feix to dismiss the complaint, Farabee alleged that Dr. Feix
had “personally authorized hospital employees . . . to forcibly
administer high doses of anti-psychotic drugs . . . that crippled
his ability to assist in his [de]fense, causing him to enter into
an unknowing, unintelligent, and incompetent guilty plea.” J.A.
25.
The district court dismissed Farabee’s complaint without
prejudice. According to the district court, Farabee claimed that
“defendants were responsible for his alleged unjust confinement in
a Virginia Department of Corrections prison, because defendants
forcibly medicated him with anti-psychotic drugs and failed to
notify [the Dinwiddie County Circuit Court], which resulted in
plaintiff entering into a guilty plea that was neither knowingly
nor intelligently established.” While recognizing that forcible
medication could give rise to a valid, independent § 1983 claim
under some circumstances, the district court ruled that Farabee’s
allegations of forcible medication related only to his argument
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that his conviction was improper. Thus, the essence of Farabee’s
claim challenged the fact of his conviction, and under Heck v.
Humphrey, the complaint did not state a cognizable § 1983 claim.
Having dismissed the complaint, the district court advised Farabee
to file the appropriate habeas forms. This appeal followed.
II.
The district court concluded that Farabee’s forcible
medication claim necessarily implied the invalidity of his
conviction and therefore was not cognizable under § 1983. “When a
state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court
must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would
necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if
it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can
demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been
invalidated.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487; see also Nelson v. Campbell,
___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 2117, 2122 (2004) (stating that a
prisoner’s claim challenging the fact of his conviction or the
duration of his sentence implicates “the core of habeas corpus and
[is] not cognizable when brought pursuant to § 1983"). As we
stated in Ballenger v. Owens, 352 F.3d 842 (4th Cir. 2003), “[t]he
logical necessity that the judgment in the § 1983 case imply the
invalidity of a criminal conviction is at the heart of the Heck
requirement for dismissal of the § 1983 action.” Id. at 846.
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Although Farabee styled his complaint under § 1983, “[w]e have
squarely held that a state prisoner’s label for his claim cannot be
controlling, even when the prisoner does not request immediate
release.” Harvey v. Horan, 278 F.3d 370, 378 (4th Cir. 2002).
Rather, we must determine whether Farabee’s specific allegations
imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence. At the outset,
we note that Farabee’s complaint makes no mention of forcible
medication. Giving Farabee the benefit of allegations made in
filings other than his complaint, we agree with the district court
that Farabee’s “essential grievance” is that Dr. Feix forcibly
administered anti-psychotic drugs that impaired Farabee’s capacity
to assist in his own defense and to enter a knowing and intelligent
plea. Beaudett v. City of Hampton, 775 F.2d 1274, 1278 (4th Cir.
1985).
Every reference to forcible medication alleges that the result
of Dr. Feix’s conduct was Farabee’s entering an invalid guilty
plea. In his motion for default judgment, Farabee alleges that he
“was being involuntarily/forcibly administered (by syringe), anti-
psychotic/psychotropic drugs” that impaired his “ability to follow
the proceeding’s [sic] against me, to testify and be cross-
examined, and to communicate effectively with counsel.” J.A. 18.
In addition, Farabee stated that the drugs administered to him by
Dr. Feix “produced a sufficient effect to render him incomp[e]tent
to enter into a guilty plea.” J.A. 18. Farabee further alleged
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that he “at no time entered into a guilty plea . . . knowingly,
intelligently, and voluntarily, rendering the guilty pleas and
convictions . . . obtained by the commonwealth invalid, and in no
way meeting constitutional standards.” J.A. 18.
Again in his response to Dr. Feix’s motion to dismiss, Farabee
alleged that Dr. Feix’s forcible medication rendered him unable to
enter a valid guilty plea: “Dr. Jeffrey [Feix] personally
authorized hospital employee’s [sic] to administer high doses of
anti-psychotic drugs and other drugs including a narcotic
tranquilizer on the plaintiff, that crippled his ability to assist
in his [de]fense, causing him to enter into an unknowing,
unintelligent, and incompetent guilty plea. . . .” J.A. 25.
Farabee repeated this allegation, stating that “Dr. [Feix]
intentionally and maliciously diminished the plaintiff’s mental
capacity causing him to incriminate himself, while he was
incompetent to plead guilty.” J.A. 25. Nowhere in his filings
does Farabee allege that Dr. Feix’s forcible medication caused him
any injury other than limiting his capacity to enter a knowing and
intelligent plea.1
We agree with the district court that Farabee discusses
forcible medication only in support of his argument that his guilty
1
Although Farabee’s initial complaint seeks $100,000 in
damages, that complaint makes no mention of forcible medication at
all. Thus, the only reasonable inference is that these damages
relate to allegations of misconduct other than forcible medication.
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plea was invalid and his resulting conviction improper. Indeed, it
is clear from Farabee’s specific allegations that his “essential
grievance” relates to the result of the forcible medication -- his
entering an invalid guilty plea -- rather than the forcible
medication itself. Beaudett, 775 F.2d at 1278.2 Success on
Farabee’s claim requires a finding that the drugs administered by
Dr. Feix caused Farabee to enter an unknowing and involuntary
guilty plea. Such a finding necessarily implies the invalidity of
Farabee’s conviction, and the district court properly ruled that
Farabee’s claim is not cognizable under § 1983.3
2
The liberal construction rule cannot be employed to read out
of Farabee’s allegations the essential link between the forcible
medication and the subsequent guilty plea. Nor can this rule be
used to supply an allegation of injury different from the injury
specifically alleged by Farabee. As we have noted, “[d]istrict
judges are not mind readers. Even in the case of pro se litigants,
they cannot be expected to construct full blown claims from
sentence fragments. . . .” Beaudett, 775 F.2d at 1278 (construing
a § 1983 claim). Although Gordon v. Leeke, 574 F.2d 1147 (4th Cir.
1978), requires that district courts not permit “technical pleading
requirements” to defeat the vindication of constitutional rights
that the plaintiff alleges were violated, id. at 1151, “it does not
require those courts to conjure up questions never squarely
presented to them,” Beaudett, 775 F.2d at 1278. We could not
supply new allegations of injury in this case without abandoning
our proper role in favor of “the improper role of an advocate
seeking out the strongest arguments and most successful strategies”
for Farabee. Id.3
Even if Farabee’s claim was cognizable under § 1983, he
failed to allege all the elements of a forcible medication claim.
A plaintiff may recover on a forcible medication claim if he proves
that “a properly identified defendant, acting under color of state
law, has effectively caused [him] to take anti-psychotic drugs
against [his] will,” and that the defendant did not exercise
“professional judgment” in administering the drugs. Johnson v.
Silvers, 742 F.2d 823, 825 (4th Cir. 1984). Farabee nowhere
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III.
Because Farabee’s allegations of forcible medication related
solely to his claim that his guilty plea was invalid, those
allegations necessarily imply the invalidity of Farabee’s
conviction. The district court properly ruled that Farabee’s
§ 1983 complaint was barred by the rule stated in Heck.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the
complaint.
AFFIRMED
alleges that Dr. Feix failed to exercise professional judgment in
his dealings with Farabee. That omission is fatal to any § 1983
claim that Farabee might have stated.
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