Ames v. The Prosecutor
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-00455
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Ames v. The Prosecutor, Judge Swain ordered the petitioner to pay $5 or submit a fee-waiver application within 30 days.
William Ames, the self-represented petitioner, must either pay the $5 filing fee or submit a signed fee-waiver application within 30 days to avoid dismissal of the action. The Prosecutor was not required to answer at this stage.
What happened
In Ames v. The Prosecutor, William Ames filed a petition asking for habeas relief without paying the filing fee or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying fees.
The court gave Ames 30 days from January 21, 2025, to pay the $5 filing fee or submit a signed fee-waiver application labeled with the case number. The court said no response from the Prosecutor was required at that time and warned that the action would be dismissed if Ames did not comply.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-waiver status for an appeal. The order did not decide whether Ames was entitled to habeas relief.
The detailed version
- Ames v. The Prosecutor · No. 1:25-cv-00455
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 21, 2025
Background
William Ames, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. A habeas petition asks a court to provide relief from unlawful custody or detention, but this order did not address the substance of Ames’s petition. Ames submitted the petition without paying the required $5 filing fee and without submitting an application to proceed without prepaying fees.
Order
The court directed Ames, within 30 days of the order, to either pay the $5 filing fee or complete and submit the attached application to proceed without prepaying fees. If the court grants that application, Ames may proceed without paying the filing fee in advance. The court directed that the application include docket number 25-CV-0455 (LTS).
The court stated that the Prosecutor did not need to file an answer at that time. If Ames complies, the case will be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures. If Ames does not comply within the permitted period, the action will be dismissed.
Appeal and disposition
The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain’s order addressed filing requirements and did not decide the merits of Ames’s habeas petition.
Classification
This is a procedural order because it addresses the filing fee and fee-waiver application rather than whether Ames is entitled to habeas relief.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.