Wells v. James
- Louis Stanton
- 1:24-cv-06979
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Wells v. James, Judge Swain ordered Carl D. Wells to pay the fee or request permission to proceed without prepaying it.
Carl D. Wells, whose habeas petition must meet the court’s fee or fee-waiver requirement to proceed; Letitia A. James was not required to answer at this stage.
What happened
In Wells v. James, Carl D. Wells filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus without paying the $5 filing fee or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying court fees. The order does not address the substance of his petition.
The court gave Wells 30 days from September 20, 2024, to pay the fee or submit a signed fee-waiver application labeled with the case number. No response from Letitia A. James was required at that time.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered that the case would be processed if Wells complied, but that the action would be dismissed if he did not. Judge Swain also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees, certifying that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Wells v. James · No. 1:24-cv-06979
- Louis Stanton
- Sept. 20, 2024
Background
Carl D. Wells, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition was submitted without the required $5 filing fee and without an application asking to proceed without prepaying court fees.
Order
The court directed Wells, within 30 days of the order, to do one of two things: pay the $5 filing fee or complete and submit the attached application to proceed without prepaying fees. The application had to include docket number 24-CV-6979 (LTS). The court explained that, if it granted the application, Wells could proceed without paying the fee in advance.
The court stated that no answer from Letitia A. James was required at that time. If Wells complied, the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If he failed to comply within the allowed time, the action would be dismissed.
Appeal
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith. It therefore denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain entered an order directing payment of the filing fee or submission of an application to proceed without prepaying fees. The order did not decide the substance of Wells’s habeas petition.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.