Hannibal Eason v. Kwame Raoul, in his official capacity

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted September 18, 2023 *
Decided September 22, 2023
Before
DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 22-3126
HANNIBAL EASON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
KWAME RAOUL, in his official
capacity, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois,
Eastern Division.
No. 22-cv-00985
Andrea R. Wood,
Judge.
O R D E R
Hannibal Eason, an Illinois prisoner, appeals the judgment dismissing his third
amended complaint for failure to state a claim. Eason asserted that state and local
officials conspired over the course of a decade to unlawfully convict him, provide him
inadequate assistance in prison, and discriminate against him in myriad ways. The
* The appellees were not served with process and are not participating in this
appeal. We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the
appellant’s brief 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 22-3126 Page 2
district court concluded that Eason’s allegations did not support a conspiracy, and we
affirm.
As set forth in his third amended complaint, the allegations of which we accept
as true, see Otis v. Demarasse, 886 F.3d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 2018), Eason faced a litany of
obstacles that he believed added up to a wide-ranging conspiracy against him. Among
these concerns were his prison’s biased grievance-review process, lack of compliance
with the Americans with Disabilities Act, inadequate medical care, and non-consensual
disbursement of inmates’ funds.
The district court dismissed Eason’s complaint for failure to state a claim and
entered a final judgment. It dismissed his conspiracy claims with prejudice, concluding
that his allegations were speculative and wholly unsupported. The court, having twice
warned Eason that he could not join unrelated claims against unrelated defendants in a
single suit, refused to consider his “scattershot” strategy of pleading a conspiracy based
on an assortment of disconnected events, the primary one being Eason’s alleged
inability to participate in his clemency hearing because he lacked a sign-language
interpreter. To the extent that any other claims remained in Eason’s complaint, the court
dismissed those without prejudice.
Eason does not meaningfully challenge the basis of the district court’s order,
see FED. R. A PP. P. 28(a)(8)(A), though we understand him mainly to reassert that the
defendants took unlawful actions that amounted to a conspiracy against him. But a
complaint alleging conspiracy needs to contain factual allegations suggesting that the
defendants agreed to violate his rights, see Cooney v. Rossiter, 583 F.3d 967, 971 (7th Cir.
2009); see also Walker v. Thompson, 288 F.3d 1005, 1007–08 (7th Cir. 2002), and Eason’s
complaint does not. As the court explained, his complaint lacks any suggestion, beyond
bare conclusions, that the disparate array of defendants was joined in a conspiracy.
Eason also contends that the court wrongly refused to recruit counsel for him.
But the court acted within its discretion in so ruling. The court correctly denied his first
request for assistance in recruiting counsel because he did not explain what effort he
made to obtain counsel on his own. The court also appropriately denied his renewed
request for counsel in his third amended complaint. As the court pointed out, he had
not stated that he had tried to find counsel independently, and his prior submissions
showed he understood, and could follow, the court’s instructions to narrow the focus of
his second amended complaint. See Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 654–55 (7th Cir. 2007)
(en banc).
AFFIRMED

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