Fulton v. Superintendent
- George Daniels
- 1:20-cv-00021
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Fulton v. Superintendent, Judge McMahon ordered a $5 fee or fee-waiver application within 30 days before processing the habeas petition.
Jeremy Fulton, the self-represented petitioner, must either pay the $5 filing fee or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees within 30 days.
What happened
Jeremy Fulton, who was representing himself, filed a petition asking for habeas relief without paying the $5 filing fee or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying fees.
The court ordered Fulton, within 30 days, either to pay the fee or submit a signed fee-waiver application labeled with the case number. The order said the case would be processed if he complied and dismissed if he did not; it did not decide the habeas petition’s underlying issues.
Judge Colleen McMahon directed the clerk to send Fulton the order and stated that any appeal would not qualify for proceeding without prepaying fees because it would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Fulton v. Superintendent · No. 1:20-cv-00021
- George Daniels
- Jan. 6, 2020
Background
Jeremy Fulton, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The opinion says that a person filing such a petition in this court must either pay a $5 filing fee or submit a signed application requesting permission to proceed without prepaying fees. Fulton submitted neither the fee nor the application.
Order
The court ordered Fulton to take one of those two actions within 30 days of the order. If he submitted the application, it had to identify docket number 20-CV-0021 (CM). The court explained that, if the application were granted, Fulton could proceed without prepaying the fee.
The clerk was directed to assign the matter to the judge’s docket, mail Fulton a copy of the order, and record service on the docket. The court did not require the respondent to answer at that time. The case would be processed under the clerk’s procedures if Fulton complied, but the action would be dismissed if he failed to comply within the allowed time.
Appeal and disposition
Judge Colleen McMahon certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal. This was a preliminary fee-related order; it did not decide the merits of Fulton’s habeas petition.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.