Steve Walker (Independent Researcher) has posted Screened Before Judgment: Docketing, In Forma Pauperis, and the Supreme Court’s Quiet Rewriting of Rule 39 Through the Cert Pool in Pro Se Litigation on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Article examines the Supreme Court’s modern treatment of in forma pauperis (“IFP”) petitions in pro se litigation through the lens of text, history, and tradition. From the Founding forward, access to judicial process was understood as a structural component of Article III adjudication rather than a discretionary indulgence. That understanding was later codified in statutes and rules governing indigent litigation, including 28 U.S.C. §1915 and Supreme Court Rule 39, which establish a presumptive entitlement to proceed without prepayment of fees once indigency is shown. Under these authorities, denial or revocation of IFP status is permitted only upon defined determinations (such as that the allegation of poverty is untrue, that the filing is frivolous or malicious, or that it fails to state a claim or seeks relief from an immune defendant), and dismissal on those grounds requires adjudicative findings rather than administrative discretion.
Lawrence Solum