Inmate ordered to name officers, entities he intends to sue

The federal court issued an order last Friday instructing inmate Jesse James Babauta Camacho to amend his complaint by naming the government entities and or government officers that he is suing.

Camacho has claimed that he is now a disabled person after he underwent heart surgery last November and blamed a Department of Corrections official and a DOC officer for allegedly causing the delay of his medical treatment.

Camacho sought help for a hearing of his complaint from the U.S. District Court for the NMI through a handwritten letter dated Feb. 9, 2018. He said he can’t pay a lawyer to represent him in his complaint.

In her order, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona said upon screening Camacho’s complaint, the court finds a cognizable and non-frivolous claim for a violation of the Eight Amendment’s guarantee of medical care without deliberate indifference by officials to serious medical needs.

Manglona said Camacho’s complaint is deficient, however, because he never indicated which officials or entities he intends to name as defendants.

Manglona said although Camacho mentions various individuals by name, the court will not presume that those are the individuals he would like to hold liable.

Manglona said a prisoner may bring a Section 1983 (civil rights) action against a state or local government entity (such as the Department of Corrections) and/or against individual government agents—the people who, he believes, deliberately deprived him of medical care for a serious condition.

The judge said until Camacho names his defendants the case cannot proceed.

Manglona said the proper course is for the court to give Camacho the opportunity to do so, rather than dismiss the complaint.

Camacho was ordered to submit a written statement of the names of an individual government officers and/or government entities that he is suing.

Manglona said if Camacho sees appointment of counsel and/or to proceed without paying the filing fees, he must file a request to do so.

If Camacho needs assistance with filing these statements, he may contact the District Court’s clerk’s office, the judge said.

Manglona said these statements must be sent to the court by placing it in the prisoner mail at the Department of Corrections within 14 days from last Friday.

The judge said failure to do so will result in dismissal of this case.

Manglona said if Camacho files all of the required statements, the court will review them and, if they are sufficient, will order the U.S. Marshals to serve the amended complaint on the named defendant or defendants.

In his complaint, Camacho said these DOC official and the officer should learn to be responsible for their actions because it’s been a practice at DOC that they always deny and delay the inmates/detainees serious medical needs.

Camacho said as his pain was getting worse he called the main control officer at DOC.

Camacho was the mastermind in the killing of a 13-year-old boy in Dandan in April 1988. He was sentenced in 1999 to 45 years in prison. The boy was stabbed numerous times in his own home as part of initiation rites for membership in the so-called Red Rum gang.

Camacho’s co-defendants, both minors at the time, entered a plea deal with the government and were sentenced to two years each.