Anthony Boyce v. Jason Peterburs

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted December 22, 2025*
Decided December 22, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Chief Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
No. 24-3230
ANTHONY BOYCE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
JASON PETERBURS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 24 C 4508
Thomas M. Durkin,
Judge.
O R D E R
Anthony Boyce sued individual public defenders, the Law Office of the Cook
County Public Defender, and an unnamed telephone company, alleging that he was
denied services during his post-conviction proceedings in violation of the Americans
with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12132, and the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794. The
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 24-3230 Page 2
district court dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.
We affirm.
We review de novo the district court’s dismissal at screening, accepting the
allegations in the complaint as true, drawing all reasonable inferences in Boyce’s favor,
and construing his pro se complaint liberally. Wilson v. Castaneda, 143 F.4th 814, 817
(7th Cir. 2025). In 2005, a jury convicted Boyce of first-degree murder, and he is
currently serving a life sentence at Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mt. Sterling,
Illinois. He suffers from various learning disabilities and mental health issues including
dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. In 2022, Assistant
Public Defender Jason Peterburs was appointed to represent Boyce in a successive post-
conviction petition in Illinois state court. Boyce alleges that his original handwritten
petition was hard to read due to his dyslexia, but Peterburs refused to file an amended
petition that was typed. Boyce claims that he should have been appointed a private
attorney who could travel to the prison to communicate with him in person because
Peterburs was unable to do so and telephone communication was insufficient due to
Boyce’s disabilities. Boyce also asserts that Peterburs did not obtain experts or a private
investigator to prove that Boyce was tortured while in custody and was mentally ill at
the time he committed first-degree murder, despite the public defender’s office having
enough funds to do so. Boyce lost his successive post-conviction matter but maintains
that had he been provided with a private attorney, experts, and a private investigator,
his post-conviction petition would have been successful.
Boyce sued Peterburs, other public defenders, the Law Office of the Cook County
Public Defender, and an unnamed telephone company, alleging they discriminated
against him because of his disabilities and identifying the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act,
and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as causes of action. The district court screened his complaint and
dismissed it for failure to state a claim. See § 1915A. The court determined that Boyce’s
claims were subject to abstention under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), because
any findings regarding the efficacy of Peterburs’s performance would call into question
the results of ongoing criminal proceedings. The court also noted that because Boyce’s
claims would imply the invalidity of his conviction, they were barred under Heck v.
Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994). The court also ruled that Boyce did not state a claim
under § 1983 both because a plaintiff cannot state an action against a public defender for
alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, and because public defenders are not state
actors. Finally, the court explained that Boyce stated a claim under neither the ADA nor
the Rehabilitation Act because Boyce was provided an attorney and thus was not
denied access to a service or program.

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No. 24-3230 Page 3
Boyce appeals and appears to challenge only the dismissal of his claims under
the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. He argues that he is entitled to damages because
he was denied access to services on the basis of his disabilities when Peterburs declined
to file an additional typed post-conviction petition, met with him only over the phone
rather than in person, and failed to investigate and prove that he was mentally ill at the
time of the crime of which he was convicted, which, according to Boyce, resulted in an
excessive sentence. To state a claim under the Rehabilitation Act or the ADA, the
plaintiff must allege that he is a qualified individual with a disability and that he was
denied the benefit of a service, program, or activity because of his disability. Shuhaiber v.
Ill. Dep’t of Corr., 980 F.3d 1167, 1170 (7th Cir. 2020).
Even assuming Boyce is a qualified individual with a disability, the district court
correctly dismissed the claims against the individual public defenders because neither
the ADA nor the Rehabilitation Act creates a cause of action against employees in their
individual capacities. Stanek v. St. Charles Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 303, 783 F.3d 634, 644
(7th Cir. 2015).
The allegation against the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender also
fails to state a claim—even assuming it is an entity covered by the ADA or the
Rehabilitation Act—because Boyce was not denied the benefit of “services, programs, or
activities of a public entity.” 42 U.S.C. § 12132. The service provided by the public
defender’s office is legal representation, which Boyce received. And Boyce’s
disagreement with the manner in which that service was provided does not state a
claim under the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act. Cf. Wagoner v. Lemmon, 778 F.3d 586,
592–93 (7th Cir. 2015) (explaining that a wheelchair-bound prisoner did not state a claim
under the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act, despite having to crawl off from a van that
was not wheelchair accessible, because “longer waits and humiliation … do not amount
to a denial of services”). To the extent Boyce is arguing that the public defender’s office
violated his rights by failing to prove that his initial conviction was the result of his
disabilities, that claim is Heck-barred because it would imply the invalidity of his
conviction. See Heck, 512 U.S. at 487.
Boyce also maintains that he was denied a service because of his disability when
the public defender’s office did not provide private post-conviction counsel to replace
Peterburs. But while Boyce was entitled under Illinois law to reasonable assistance of
appointed counsel in his state post-conviction proceedings, People v. Perkins, 890 N.E.2d
398, 402 (Ill. 2007), he was not entitled to choose or replace his appointed counsel.
See People v. West, 560 N.E.2d 594, 608 (Ill. 1990). And, as the district court noted,

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Younger counsels against discussing Peterburs’s performance because it appears Boyce
is currently appealing the dismissal of his post-conviction petition on the grounds that
Peterburs provided unreasonable assistance. See Younger, 401 U.S. at 43.
Next, Boyce contends that the court abused its discretion when it denied as moot
his motions to appoint counsel because Boyce was incapable of litigating his complex
case. We do not think the court erred. But even if the court did err by not assessing
Boyce’s motions to appoint counsel under the standard in Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647,
654, 659 (7th Cir. 2007), this error was harmless—Boyce was not prejudiced because the
case was properly dismissed for failure to state a claim.
Finally, Boyce argues that the district court erred by not allowing him to amend
his complaint. But the court did review his proposed amended complaint and found it
did not state a claim on which relief could be granted. The court did not err in
dismissing Boyce’s case without granting him another opportunity to amend his
complaint, because to do so would have been futile. See Gonzalez-Koeneke v. West,
791 F.3d 801, 807 (7th Cir. 2015).
AFFIRMED

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