Robinson v. Scrogum

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Robinson, an Illinois inmate, alleged (42 U.S.C. 1983) that Pontiac Correctional Center guards beat him and taunted him with racial slurs as punishment for filing grievances. The district court dismissed, reasoning that some of Robinson’s allegations about the altercation conflicted with his disciplinary conviction for assaulting the guards. The court recognized that Robinson’s suit would not be barred if he argued that the guards used more force than was reasonably necessary to subdue him, but concluded that Robinson “plead[ed] himself out of court” by insisting that he did nothing to provoke the beating. The Seventh Circuit vacated, holding that the district court abused its discretion in declining to recruit counsel for Robinson. Though there is no automatic right to recruitment of counsel in civil cases, a pro se litigant’s requests for counsel are entitled to careful consideration. The district court found that Robinson made reasonable efforts to obtain counsel. Robinson stated that he has only an eighth-grade education and stays “heavily medicated” with psychotropic drugs but the district court did not address or conclude that it disbelieved Robinson’s explanation that another inmate helped him draft the documents that the court looked to for evidence of his capacity to litigate. View "Robinson v. Scrogum" on Justia Law