Wells v. United States
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:22-cv-00233
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Wells v. United States, Judge Caproni ordered Perry Wells to pay the filing fee or request permission to proceed without prepaying it.
Perry Wells, who had to pay the $5 filing fee or submit an application to proceed without prepaying fees to continue the case.
What happened
In Wells v. United States, Perry Wells filed a petition asking the court to review his sentence. He was proceeding without a lawyer.
The court had treated an earlier filing in Wells’s criminal case as a petition under a federal law allowing challenges to certain sentences and opened this separate civil case. Wells submitted the petition without paying the $5 filing fee or submitting an application to proceed without prepaying court fees.
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Wells, within 30 days, either to pay the fee or submit a signed fee-waiver application. The court said no response from the United States was required yet and warned that the case would be dismissed if Wells did not comply. The court also denied permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Wells v. United States · No. 1:22-cv-00233
- Valerie Caproni
- Jan. 19, 2022
Background
Perry Wells, who was proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition for a court order reviewing his sentence. The court explained that Wells had originally submitted the request as a letter in his criminal case. In an earlier related proceeding, the court treated the request to recalculate his sentence as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and directed that it be opened as this new civil action.
Filing requirement
To proceed with the petition, Wells had to either pay the $5 filing fee or submit a signed application to proceed without prepaying fees, commonly called an IFP application. Wells submitted the petition without either the fee or the application.
Ruling and next steps
The court ordered Wells to pay the filing fee or complete and submit the attached IFP application within 30 days of the order. If the court grants the application, Wells may proceed without prepaying the fees. The court stated that no answer from the United States was required at that time and that the case would be processed under the Clerk’s Office procedures if Wells complied. If he did not comply within the deadline, the action would be dismissed.
The court also certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal. The order did not decide the substance of Wells’s sentence-related petition.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.