Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals

{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2023}}

{{Infobox SCOTUS case

|Litigants= Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals

|DecideDate=November 2

|DecideYear=1992

|USVol=506

|USPage=1

|ParallelCitations=113 S. Ct. 397; 121 L. Ed. 2d 305

|Docket=92-5584

|Prior=

|Subsequent=

|Holding=Petitioner is not entitled to file non-criminal in forma pauperis petitions for writ of certiorari, and must file all such petitions in compliance with Court rules and pay for them.

|PerCuriam=Yes

|Dissent=Stevens

|JoinDissent=Blackmun

|LawsApplied=

}}

Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U.S. 1 (1992), was a US Supreme Court opinion denying a petition for motion to proceed in forma pauperis, as the petitioner had repeatedly abused the process.Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U.S. 1, 2-3 (1992) (per curiam). Specifically, the Court prohibited the petitioner from filing further non-criminal in forma pauperis petitions, and that all petitions filed must be compliant with Court rules and must have had the filing fee paid.Martin, 506 U.S. at 3 (per curiam). The dissent, written by Justice Stevens, argued that the result violated the "open access" of the Court.Martin, 506 U.S. at 4 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

The petitioner in the case, James Martin, was a serial abuser of the Court’s certiorari process; in the past decade following the Court’s per curium opinion, Martin filed 45 petitions relating to being incarcerated for an unrelated offense, and the last 15 petitions for the prior two years were dismissed under the Court’s Rule 39.8.{{cite web | url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/506/1 | title=James L. MARTIN v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS et al. James L. MARTIN v. Christine McDERMOTT et al }} Although the case theoretically applies to only the Supreme Court itself and has no presidential effect in the lower courts decisions regarding indigent litigants, it has become a commonly cited procedural tool against certain abusive petitioners on the Supreme Court’s in forma pauperis docket - particularly those who repeatedly petition similar frivolous arguments within several years - averaging around 2-3 petitioners per order list.