Porretti v. Director of Nevada Dept of Corrections ( 2021 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 8 * * * 9 WAYNE A. PORRETTI, Case No. 2:20-cv-00249-APG-BNW 10 Plaintiff, ORDER v. 11 DIRECTOR OF NDOC, et al., 12 Defendants. 13 14 15 I. DISCUSSION 16 Plaintiff has filed a motion seeking appointment of counsel in this action. (ECF No. 17 15). 18 A litigant does not have a constitutional right to appointed counsel in 42 U.S.C. § 19 1983 civil rights claims. Storseth v. Spellman, 654 F.2d 1349, 1353 (9th Cir. 1981). 20 Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1), “[t]he court may request an attorney to represent any 21 person unable to afford counsel.” However, the court will appoint counsel for indigent 22 civil litigants only in “exceptional circumstances.” Palmer v. Valdez, 560 F.3d 965, 970 23 (9th Cir. 2009) (§ 1983 action). “When determining whether ‘exceptional circumstances’ 24 exist, a court must consider ‘the likelihood of success on the merits as well as the ability 25 of the petitioner to articulate his claims pro se in light of the complexity of the legal issues 26 involved.” Id. “Neither of these considerations is dispositive and instead must be viewed 27 together.” Id. ' In the instant case, the Court does not find exceptional circumstances that warrant 2 the appointment of counsel at this time. The issues in this case are not complex. In addition, although Plaintiff indicates that he has some psychological issues, it appears from the filings in this case that he has not had difficulty communicating and stating claims ° compared to the typical pro se plaintiff. Furthermore, as with many civil rights actions, | 8 have permitted some of the claims in Plaintiff's complaint to proceed, but that decision was based only on allegations, not evidence. It therefore would be premature to assess 8 Plaintiff's likelihood of success in this action. Accordingly, | deny the motion for 9 appointment of counsel without prejudice. 0 ll. CONCLUSION " For the foregoing reasons, IT |S ORDERED that the motion for appointment of "2 counsel (ECF No. 15) is denied without prejudice. 13 14 DATED: February 9, 2021 15 (ior UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28