Holmes v. Minnesota DOC

Background

Stephan Nicholas Holmes filed a self-styled motion asking the court to order defendants to arrange depositions. He had asked to depose defendants Cassandra Halfacre, Joan Wolff, and Kirsten Grunewaldt, as well as non-party witnesses Darin Haugland and Luke DeHaan. He also requested documents. Defendants responded to the document request but did not initially respond to the deposition requests.

Holmes is representing himself and is incarcerated at Minnesota Correctional Facility–Oak Park Heights. The court stated that his limited ability to communicate from prison made it especially important for defense counsel to respond to his communications. Defense counsel said she had prepared a response in April 2025 but apparently never sent it. The court called that failure unacceptable and directed counsel to be more diligent, including following up if Holmes did not respond.

Court’s Analysis

The court construed the motion as asking it to direct defendants to work with Holmes on scheduling the requested depositions. After Holmes filed the motion, defense counsel sent him a July 7, 2025 letter about next steps for arranging depositions of Halfacre, Wolff, and Grunewaldt. Because defendants had begun doing what the motion asked the court to order, the court concluded that its intervention was no longer required. It therefore treated the motion as moot.

The court noted that defense counsel did not represent Haugland or DeHaan and was not responsible for arranging their depositions. To obtain testimony from those witnesses, Holmes would need to serve subpoenas under Rule 45 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and arrange for the testimony to be transcribed. He would also need to give defendants notice and copies of the subpoenas.

The court further explained that Rule 30 generally requires the party requesting an oral deposition to pay the recording costs. Defendants were not required to pay those costs, and the court would not pay them merely because Holmes had permission to proceed without paying filing fees. Holmes would also need to follow the notice requirements for oral depositions and coordinate with the prison to conduct them remotely or through another process addressing security concerns. The court identified depositions by written questions, interrogatories, and requests for admission as alternative discovery methods if Holmes could not afford oral-deposition costs.

Disposition

The court ordered that Holmes’s Motion Ordering Defendants Arrange Depositions, ECF No. 110, was DENIED AS MOOT.