SWIFTER JUSTICE:

West Tenn. court speeds up process for plaintiffs filing in their own behalf

Court speeds up process for people filing on their own behalf.

Rickey J. Harlmon was a prisoner in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 2011 when he prepared a handwritten complaint challenging the gun and drug sentence imposed by federal court in Memphis. He wrote that his defense lawyer had failed to file an appeal on time and that his 78-month term was unfair.

The handwritten complaint worked. After a lengthy procedure, the government agreed last year to knock two months off Harlmon’s sentence. He is now scheduled for release in June.

The prisoner’s success was modest, but still astounding. People who file federal lawsuits without a lawyer often have weak cases and almost no chance of winning, court officials say, but instances such as Harlmon’s illustrate why the court takes their filings seriously.

The federal court in West Tennessee sees a high percentage of people filing lawsuits without lawyers, said District Court Clerk Tom Gould, and that factor has helped made the court one of the slowest federal districts in the country — even though local judges handled more cases each year than their colleagues elsewhere. The court’s statistics have shown improvement recently as its leaders take steps to speed up the docket.

People filing without lawyers are called pro se plaintiffs — it’s Latin and means “for oneself.”

Memphis has a high proportion of pro se cases because it’s a high-poverty area with many hourly employees working in warehouses and similar settings, and they may seek to bring a complaint for employment discrimination or a similar grievance but can’t afford a lawyer, Gould said. The western district of Tennessee also includes many lockups, and prisoners often have plenty of time to file suits seeking reduced sentences or complaining about conditions, he said.

As of Jan. 29, pro se cases from prisoners and others accounted for 686 of the court’s 1,685 pending civil lawsuits, or 41 percent, said Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Diane K. Vescovo.

Civil cases in the western district of Tennessee took a median of 11.6 months from start to finish in 2013, worse than the national average of 8.5 months. The court ranked 81st of 94 districts nationwide. In 2014, the average time had dropped slightly, to 10.9 months, and the district ranked 65th of 94 courts.

Today, Vescovo is implement-

ing recommendations from a federal team that visited the court last year and suggested ways to deal with pro se lawsuits quick ly.

The court is assigning more people to address pro se cases.

The attorneys and other officials who deal with pro se cases don’t offer legal advice. Instead, they screen the filings for mer it .

The court has boosted the number of pro se attorneys from three to four, and the court also plans to hire a fifth lawyer to work part time, Vescovo said. Moreover, the court has enlisted the four magistrate judges and their law clerks to review some pro se cases.

The cases create a lot of work. Vescovo points to a federal lawsuit filed in March by Samuel Jefferson, a resident of Downtown .

In a scrawling handwritten script, Jefferson wrote that the World Bank orchestrated an incident in which four African men broke into his home: “I was made by force to smoke a large rock of crack which tasted of insecticide,” he wrote. In addition to the World Bank, he sued “Iran, Asia Minor, Asia and its CEOs, and its Non American Shareholders of Eastern Discent (sic); Coffee Annon.” (Jefferson is apparently referring to Kofi Annan, former United Nations secretary-general.)

Vescovo recommended the case be dismissed as frivolous — but she had to write a detailed eightpage report explaining why. If a pro se litigant brings a good case, though, the court sometimes assigns a lawyer to help him or her, Vescovo said.

The court has nearly completed its review of pro se prisoner lawsuits from 2012 and soon will start on 2013, she said. In an interview in her office, Vescovo pointed to two stacks of papers, each about a foot high. “Those files over there are things I’ve been trying to implement and do.”

Pro se litigants pose special challenges.

Gould said he tries to keep these people away from the lawyers reviewing their cases, since losing sometimes makes the plaintiffs angry. Vescovo said that in recent years four pro se litigants have filed complaints against her.

Aside from pro se cases, the court is making other changes to speed up procedures.

For instance, judges have largely stopped the practice of bringing together everyone involved in a criminal case for meetings known as status conferences. Gould said it was often a waste of time, since a lawyer usually asked for a 30-day delay.

In 2011, criminal cases in the western district of Tennessee took an average of 15.4 months from start to finish. That was far slower than that year’s national average of 7 months, and the court ranked 90th out of 94 districts nationwide.

In 2014, by contrast, criminal cases were taking 9.8 months from start to finish, compared to that year’s national average of 7.5 months, and the court ranked 54 out of 94 districts.

Gould said he’s confident that the changes Vescovo is making today will speed up the court even more.

But he said the court can’t lose sight of the fact that some pro se complaints are valid.

“When you have so many of these, it hurts the person coming through who really has a legitimate case,” he said.