sanctioning a petitioner for fil- ing a frivolous petition for certiorari because the petitioner had filed ten frivolous petitions in one year, and the Court had previously warned him that “[f]uture similar filings” would “merit additional measures.”
How later courts described this case
- sanctioning a petitioner for fil- ing a frivolous petition for certiorari because the petitioner had filed ten frivolous petitions in one year, and the Court had previously warned him that “[f]uture similar filings” would “merit additional measures.”
- requiring district courts to provide notice and invite response when sua sponte enjoining future filing under 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a)
- denying in forma pauperis application of “a notorious abuser of this Court's certiorari process,” who had filed 11 petitions which were frivolous, with the arguable exception of one
- “Every paper filed with the Clerk of this Court, no matter how repetitious or frivolous, requires some portion of the institution’s limited resources. A part of the Court’s responsibility is to see that these resources are allocated in a way that promotes the interests of justice.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Blackmun joins,
dissenting.
In my opinion the judicial resources of the Court could be used more effectively by simply denying Martin’s petitions than by drafting, entering, and policing the order the Court enters today. The theoretical administrative benefit the Court may derive from an order of this kind is far outweighed by the shadow it casts on the great tradition of open access that characterized the Court’s history prior to its unprecedented decisions in In re McDonald, 489 U. S. 180 (1989) (per curiam), and In re Sindram, 498 U. S. 177 (1991) (per curiam). I continue to adhere to the views expressed in the dissenting opinions filed in those cases, and in the dissenting opinion I filed in Zatko v. California, 502 U. S. 16, 18 (1991) (per curiam). See also Talamini v. Allstate Ins. Co., 470 U. S. 1067 (1985), appeal dism’d (Stevens, J., concurring).