USA v. Eklund

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
LOUIS HOLGER EKLUND,
Defendant.
Case No. 3:18-cr-00035-SLG
ORDER REGARDING MOTION TO RECONSIDER
Before the Court at Docket 610 is pro se defendant Louis Holger Eklund’s
Motion to Reconsider Order at Dkt. 607. No response from the government is
necessary.
At Docket 607 is the Court’s order denying Mr. Holger’s motion for the Court
to consider his petition for certiorari at sentencing and for recusal of the
undersigned judge from this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 455. Because the
motion did not comply with the Court’s previous orders1 regulating what types of
materials Mr. Holger can file into this case, the Clerk of Court struck the motion
from the record.2 The instant motion seeks reconsideration of Mr. Holger’s “motion
1 Due to Mr. Holger’s numerous irrelevant filings into this case, the Court issued an order
regulating permissible filings in order to retain control over the docket. See Docket 287. The
order gave Mr. Holger notice that non-compliant filings would be stricken from the docket and
advised Mr. Holger to consult with his standby counsel. The Court has stricken approximately
45 filings by Mr. Holger for failure to comply with the order.
2 Docket 607 at 2.
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Case No. 3:18-cr-00035-SLG, United States v. Eklund
Order Re Motion to Reconsider
Page 2 of 3
& to unstrike it & again make it available for public review . . . .”3 Because Mr.
Holger has not shown a “manifest error of the law or fact,” “discovery of new
material facts not previously available,” or an “intervening change in the law”
needed to justify reconsideration,4 the Court will not reconsider the order at Docket
427. As the Court previously determined, the petition for certiorari does not contain
any information relevant to Mr. Holger’s sentencing, and nothing in 28 U.S.C. §
455 requires recusal.
The Court will also construe Mr. Holger’s instant motion as a motion for
seeking to disqualify the undersigned judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 144.5 Section
§144 requires that a party seeking a judge’s disqualification must file “a timely and
sufficient affidavit” or shall show good cause for a late filing. Mr. Holger’s motion
is based on the fact that he filed a lawsuit naming the undersigned judge as a
defendant in February 2018.6 The district court dismissed that case as without
merit, and the Ninth Circuit dismissed the subsequent appeal as frivolous.7
3 Docket 610 at 6.
4 D. Ak. L. Crim. R. 47.1(g)(1).
5 See Docket 610 at 2 (“It has come to my attention that I had made a clerical error & cited the
wrong subsection (in citing 28 U.S.C. § 455). The proper citing of the statute that pertains to
bias or prejudice of judge is at 28 U.S.C. § 144 . . . .”).
6 Docket 610 at 4; see also Wesley v. State of Alaska, Inc. et al., case number 3:18-cv-0007-
RRB.
7 Case number 3:18-cv-00079-RRB at Docket 8 (district court order), Docket 14 (Ninth Circuit
order).
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Case No. 3:18-cr-00035-SLG, United States v. Eklund
Order Re Motion to Reconsider
Page 3 of 3
The Court finds that the § 144 motion is untimely. Mr. Holger waited to file
the motion until more than two and a half years after this case was assigned to the
undersigned judge.8 Moreover, this case has already proceeded through a six-
day jury trial. Mr. Holger waited until six months after trial and five weeks before
sentencing to file the § 144 motion; accordingly, the motion is untimely.9 The Court
also finds that there is no good cause for the untimeliness of the motion because
Mr. Holger was aware of his own civil case for nearly a year before this case was
reassigned to the undersigned judge and has been aware of the exact issue he
now complains about for more than two and half years.
In light of the foregoing, IT IS ORDERED that the motion at Docket 610 is
DENIED.
DATED this 29th day of October, 2021, at Anchorage, Alaska.
/s/ Sharon L. Gleason
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
8 See Docket 54 (reassigning case on January 3, 2019).
9 See United States v. Studley, 783 F.2d 934, 939 (9th Cir. 1986) (A § 144 “motion for recusal
filed weeks after the conclusion of a trial is presumptively untimely absent a showing of good
cause for its tardiness.”); United States v. Hurd, 549 F.2d 118 (9th Cir. 1977) (§ 144 motion filed
on fifth day of trial was untimely).
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