United States of America v. Griffin

Filing 15

SUPPLEMENT to Memorandum Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 3/6/2012. (ma,)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
RANDY GRIFFIN,
Defendant.

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No. 12 C 533
(04 CR 531)

SUPPLEMENT TO MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
After this Court had issued its brief March 1 memorandum
opinion and order (“Opinion”) addressing the effort by pro se
prisoner Randy Griffin (“Griffin”) to proceed on appeal in forma
pauperis, its attention was called to the per curiam opinion of
our Court of Appeals in Hains v. Washington, 131 F.3d 1248, 1250
(7th Cir. 1997).

Hains dealt with a complaint by a prisoner that

had been dismissed under 28 U.S.C. §1915A because of its failure
to state a claim, and the court stated in part:
The upshot is that district courts must apply the
PLRA’s fee assessment and collection mechanism when
they dismiss under §1915A. As we said in Newlin, the
filing of a complaint (or appeal) is the act that
creates the obligation to pay fees, and what the judge
does later does not relieve a litigant of this
responsibility. It would be absurd if the very weakest
complaints--those summarily thrown out under
§1915A--were cost-free from the prisoner’s perspective,
while more substantial claims must be paid for. The
district court must assess and collect in Hains’ case,
and we remand for that purpose.
That mandate has not been altered in the decade and a half
that has elapsed since the Hains decision, and that calls for a
rejection of the discretionary approach that this Court had

suggested in the Opinion.

Accordingly an initial payment of

$30.96 must be made by Griffin toward the $455 aggregate in
filing fees, and the Lewisburg USP (“Lewisburg”) trust fund
officer is ordered to collect that amount from Griffin’s trust
fund account and to pay it directly to the Clerk of Court
(“Clerk”):
Office of the Clerk
United States District Court
219 South Dearborn Street
Chicago IL 60604
Attention:

Fiscal Department

Both that initial payment and all future payments called for in
this memorandum opinion and order shall clearly identify
Griffin’s name and the 12 C 533 and 04 CR 531 case numbers
assigned to this action.

To implement these requirements, the

Clerk shall send a copy of this supplement to the Opinion
directly to the Lewisburg trust fund officer.
After such initial payment, the trust fund officer at
Lewisburg (or at any other correctional facility where Griffin
may hereafter be confined) is authorized to collect monthly
payments from Griffin’s trust fund account in an amount equal to
20% of the preceding month’s income credited to the account.
Monthly payments collected from the trust fund account shall be
forwarded to the Clerk each time the amount in the account

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exceeds $10 until the full $455 in filing fees is paid.

________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date:

March 6, 2012

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