In re: Malachi Reynolds

Background

Malachi Reynolds filed a civil action while incarcerated at the Rikers Island – West Facility Annex and represented himself. He submitted the complaint without paying the filing fees and without a completed application to proceed without prepaying fees or a prisoner authorization.

Court’s Requirements

The court explained that a prisoner must either pay $405 in fees—$350 for the filing fee and $55 for the administrative fee—or request permission to proceed without prepaying fees by submitting a signed application and prisoner authorization. If permission is granted, the Prison Litigation Reform Act requires collection of the $350 filing fee in installments from the prisoner’s account. The authorization also directs the facility to provide certified account statements for the previous six months.

Within 30 days of the order, Reynolds must either pay the $405 or submit the required application and authorization labeled with docket number 1:25-CV-4527 (LTS). No summons will issue at this time. If he complies, the Clerk’s Office will process the case under its procedures; if he does not comply within the allowed time, the action will be dismissed.

Ruling

Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for purposes of an appeal. The order did not decide the merits of Reynolds’s underlying claims. It also warned that certain future dismissals could count as strikes under the prisoner-filing statute, but it did not state that this action had received a strike.