Barry v. The State of New York
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:19-cv-04189
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Mamadou Barry v. Jaime Lamanna, Judge Briccetti denied Barry’s extension request without prejudice and set procedures for defendants’ discovery responses.
Mamadou Barry and defendants Jaime Lamanna, Duncan S. Bey, Jr., and Chantel K. Elmore; the order sets procedures and deadlines for their discovery.
What happened
Mamadou Barry, who was representing himself, told the court that defendants had not answered his interrogatories and document requests and asked for more time to send follow-up requests. In Mamadou Barry v. Jaime Lamanna, defense counsel said the New York Attorney General’s office had been closed and counsel had not received Barry’s mail.
The court denied Barry’s request without prejudice, meaning he may ask again after receiving defendants’ responses if follow-up discovery is still needed. The court ordered Barry to mail his discovery requests to the Pro Se Clerk by July 31, 2020; defendants must answer within 21 days after the clerk dockets them. Other discovery deadlines remained unchanged.
Judge Vincent Briccetti also ruled that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Barry permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Barry v. The State of New York · No. 7:19-cv-04189
- Vincent Briccetti
- July 14, 2020
Background
Mamadou Barry, proceeding without a lawyer and without prepaying court fees, reported that the defendants had not responded to his March 17 and April 7, 2020, interrogatories and requests for documents. He asked for an extension of time to serve follow-up discovery, with the extension beginning after he received the defendants’ responses.
Defense counsel stated that the Westchester office of the Office of the New York Attorney General had been closed for several months, would remain closed until July 20, 2020, and that counsel had not received Barry’s mail. Counsel stated that if Barry uploaded the discovery requests to the court’s electronic filing system, the defendants would respond but would need at least 10 days from the upload date.
Court’s analysis and rulings
The court stated that Barry’s request was premature and denied it without prejudice. This means the request was denied at that time, but Barry could make another request after receiving the defendants’ responses if he still believed follow-up discovery was necessary.
The court criticized defense counsel’s lack of access to mail and noted that an earlier March 9, 2020, order had extended the deadline for serving document requests and interrogatories to June 17, 2020, and the deadline for responding to them to July 17, 2020.
The court ordered Barry to mail his interrogatories and document requests by July 31, 2020, to the Pro Se Clerk at the United States District Court address in White Plains, New York. After the Pro Se Clerk docketed the requests, the defendants were required to answer within 21 days. All other discovery deadlines in the March 9 order remained unchanged.
The court also 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 purposes of an appeal. The court directed Chambers to mail Barry a copy of the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.