(PC) Sekona v. Hernandez ( 2019 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 ETUATE SEKONA, No. 2:17-cv-0346-KJM-EFB P 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER 14 JOE A. LIZARRAGA, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 17 Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding without counsel in an action brought under 42 18 U.S.C. § 1983. He has once again requested that the court appoint counsel. As plaintiff has been 19 previously informed (ECF Nos. 14, 21 32, 59), district courts lack authority to require counsel to 20 represent indigent prisoners in section 1983 cases. Mallard v. United States Dist. Court, 490 U.S. 21 296, 298 (1989). In exceptional circumstances, the court may request an attorney to voluntarily 22 to represent such a plaintiff. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1); Terrell v. Brewer, 935 F.2d 1015, 1017 23 (9th Cir. 1991); Wood v. Housewright, 900 F.2d 1332, 1335-36 (9th Cir. 1990). When 24 determining whether “exceptional circumstances” exist, the court must consider the likelihood of 25 success on the merits as well as the ability of the plaintiff to articulate his claims pro se in light of 26 the complexity of the legal issues involved. Palmer v. Valdez, 560 F.3d 965, 970 (9th Cir. 2009). 27 Having considered those factors, the court still finds there are no exceptional circumstances in 28 this case. 1 Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiffs request for appointment of 2 || counsel (ECF No. 73) is denied. 3 | DATED: September 18, 2019. tid, PDEA 4 EDMUND F. BRENNAN ; UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28