Buford #179711 v. Getting et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
FREDRICK LEDELL BUFORD #179711,
Plaintiff,
v.
JEFFREY S. GETTING, et al.
Defendant.
______________________________/
Hon. Robert J. Jonker
Case No. 1:25-cv-1657
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
This is a civil rights action brought by a convicted prisoner under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Plaintiff sues Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting and unidentified assistant prosecutors
in that office. (ECF No. 1 at PageID.3.) The Court has granted Plaintiff leave to proceed in forma
pauperis. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996)
(PLRA), the Court is required to dismiss any prisoner action brought under federal law if the
complaint is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or seeks
monetary relief from a defendant immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A. The
Court must read Plaintiff's pro se complaint indulgently, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520
(1972), and accept Plaintiff's allegations as true, unless they are clearly irrational or wholly
incredible. Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992). Applying these standards, and pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), I recommend that the Court DISMISS Plaintiff's complaint for failure
to state a claim.
I. Background
Plaintiff is presently incarcerated with the Michigan Department of Corrections at the
Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility.
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Plaintiff alleges that on May 4, 2024, Travon Blakely assaulted him with an exhaust pipe
at 830 West Main St. in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Anthony Thomas Lipsey, Blakely’s cousin,
witnessed the assault. Plaintiff was able to run out of the house and make it to a nearby gas station,
where police officers arrived and found Plaintiff beaten and bloody. Plaintiff reported to the
officers that Blakely had assaulted him with an exhaust pipe. Thereafter, an ambulance arrived and
took Plaintiff to Bronson Hospital, where he received more than 20 stitches on the left side of his
forehead and more than 15 staples on the top and back of his head. (Id. at PageID.4.) Because
Plaintiff feared for his life, his niece rescued him from the hospital. (Id.)
Less than two weeks later, Plaintiff encountered Blakely at a gas station, where Blakely
asked Plaintiff, “You good?” (Id.) Plaintiff reported this encounter to the police at the Kalamazoo
Public Safety station on Crosstown-Parkway Street. He then went to the court building and spoke
with a female assistant prosecutor, who told Plaintiff that she was going to re-issue another warrant
for Blakely due to Plaintiff’s injuries. (Id.) Less than two months after Plaintiff’s assault, officers
arrested Blakely for the stabbing murder of his stepfather/mother’s boyfriend. Anthony Lipsey,
who witnessed Blakely’s assault of Plaintiff, was arrested for the shooting murder of Mike Powers
in front of numerous witnesses. (Id.)
For relief, Plaintiff seeks $66,000,000.00 for ongoing pain and suffering, plastic surgery,
mental/physical therapy for life, and relocation of Plaintiff and his family members. Plaintiff also
seeks removal of his present conviction and sentence, as well as attorney’s fees and costs. (Id. at
PageID.5.) Plaintiff contends that such relief against Defendant Getting and the unnamed assistant
prosecutors is warranted due to “reckless negligence and dereliction of duty” that caused the
release of an apprehended suspect (Blakely) and resulted in a “threat of death” and “United States
liability of multiple death(s).” (Id.)
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II. Failure to State a Claim
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a claim must be dismissed for failure
to state a claim on which relief may be granted unless the “[f]actual allegations [are] enough to
raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint’s
allegations are true.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 545 (2007) (internal citations
and footnote omitted).
As the Supreme Court has held, to satisfy this rule, a complaint must contain “sufficient
factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v.
Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). This plausibility standard “is
not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant
has acted unlawfully.” Id. If the complaint simply “pleads facts that are merely consistent with a
defendant’s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to
relief.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). As the Court further observed:
Two working principles underlie our decision in Twombly. First, the tenet that a
court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is
inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of
action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice. Rule 8 marks a
notable and generous departure from the hypertechnical, code-pleading regime of
a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with
nothing more than conclusions. Second, only a complaint that states a plausible
claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss. 	Determining whether a complaint
states a plausible claim for relief will, as the Court of Appeals observed, be a
context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial
experience and common sense. But where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the
court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has
alleged— but it has not “show[n]”—“that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
Id. at 678–79 (internal citations omitted).
III. Discussion
Based on the facts Plaintiff alleges in his complaint, it is unclear why Plaintiff sues
Defendant Getting or the unnamed assistant prosecutors. Blakely assaulted Plaintiff on May 4,
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2024. There is no indication that Getting or any assistant prosecutor had anything to do with the
assault or injuries Plaintiff suffered. Plaintiff alleges that he encountered Blakely at a gas station
about two weeks after the assault, but he does not allege that Blakely did anything to him. Plaintiff
spoke to an assistant prosecutor, who indicated that she was going to re-issue an arrest warrant for
Blakely. It is unclear whether Blakely was arrested, but two months later, Blakely murdered
someone else, not Plaintiff. Plaintiff does not allege that Blakely harmed him at any time after the
May 4, 2024 assault. Plaintiff fails to demonstrate how Defendant Getting or any assistant
prosecutor is even arguably responsible for the injuries Blakely inflicted on Plaintiff, and Plaintiff
cannot claim any injury based on Blakely’s subsequent murder of someone else.
In any event, Plaintiff fails to allege a cognizable constitutional violation pursuant to 42
U.S.C. § 1983. First, to the extent that Plaintiff intends to assert that Defendant Getting or any
assistant prosecutor failed to arrest and/or prosecute Blakely, he fails to allege a constitutional
violation. See Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 768 (2005) (no due process right to
have someone else arrested for a crime); Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973) (no
constitutional interest in prosecution or non-prosecution of another); Webb v. Caldwell, 664 F.
App’x 695, 696 (10th Cir. 2016) (“Though one might receive a benefit from having someone
prosecuted or arrested, one lacks a constitutional right to such a response from governmental
officials.”).
In addition, Defendant Getting and the assistant prosecutors owed Plaintiff no duty of
protection from Blakely. As the Supreme Court has explained,
nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect
the life, liberty and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors. The
Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State’s power to act, not as a guarantee of
certain minimal levels of safety and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive
individuals of life, liberty, or property without ‘due process of law,’ but its language
cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure
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that those interests do not come to harm through other means. Its purpose was to
protect the people from the State, not to ensure that the State protected them from
each other.
DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195–96 (1989). See Chigano v.
City of Knoxville, 529 F. App’x 753, 756 (6th Cir. 2013) (“While the Due Process Clause prohibits
the State from depriving any person of life or liberty, it does not affirmatively require the State to
protect the life and liberty of its citizens against actions by private actors.”).
Last, Plaintiff’s request for removal of his current conviction and sentence is not proper
relief as it bears no relationship to this action. Moreover, a request for release from prison
constitutes a challenge to the fact or duration of confinement, which should be brought as a petition
for habeas corpus; it is not the proper subject of a civil rights action brought pursuant to Section
1983. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 484 (1973) (discussing that the essence of habeas
corpus is an attack by a person in custody upon the legality of that custody and the traditional
function of the writ is to secure release from illegal custody). Thus, Plaintiff's request for removal
of his conviction and sentence is not properly asserted in this action. See Adams v. Morris, 90 F.
App’x 856, 858 (6th Cir. 2004) (concluding that dismissal is appropriate where Section 1983
action seeks equitable relief and challenges fact or duration of confinement).
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, I recommend that the Court dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A for failure to state a claim.
The Court must also decide whether an appeal of this action would be in good faith within
the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3). See McGore v. Wrigglesworth, 114 F.3d 601, 611 (6th Cir.
1997). Good faith is judged objectively, Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 445 (1962), and
an appeal is not taken in good faith if the issue presented is frivolous, defined as lacking an
arguable basis either in fact or law. See Dellis v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 257 F.3d 508, 511 (6th Cir.
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2001). For the same reasons that I recommend dismissal of the action, I discern no good faith basis
for an appeal and recommend that, should Plaintiff appeal this decision, the Court assess the
$605.00 appellate filing fee pursuant to Section 1915(b)(1), see McGore, 114 F.3d at 610-11.
Date: December 10, 2025 	/s/ Sally J. Berens
SALLY J. BERENS
U.S. Magistrate Judge
NOTICE
OBJECTIONS to this Report and Recommendation must be filed with the Clerk of Court
within 14 days of the date of service of this notice. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). Failure to file
objections within the specified time waives the right to appeal the District Court’s order. See
Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140 (1985); United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947 (6th Cir. 1981).
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