Opinion
Case No. 16 C 11543
02-10-2017
RODNEY RASHAD JONES, JR., Plaintiff, v. SGT. MCCRAY, et al., Defendants.
MEMORANDUM ORDER
This Court's three page memorandum order (the "Order"), addressing what Cook County Department of Corrections ("County Jail") inmate Rodney Rashad Jones, Jr. ("Jones") has sought to advance as a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983") lawsuit, did two things:
1. It granted Jones' In Forma Pauperis Application in the special sense that Congress has prescribed in 28 U.S.C. § 1915.
2. It deferred ruling on Jones' contemporaneously filed Motion for Attorney Representation ("Motion") because of his noncompliance with the requirements established by our Court of Appeals' caselaw in that area, while it meanwhile transmitted to Jones fresh counterparts of the Clerk's-Office-supplied forms of Motion to enable him to cure the defect and get on with the case.
All further references to Title 28's provisions will simply take the form "Section --," omitting the prefatory "28 U.S.C. §."
This Court expresses no views on the substantive merit of Jones' claim. It simply determines as a threshold matter that the claim is not "frivolous" in the legal sense so as to call for an up-front dismissal following a Section 1915A preliminary screening. --------
But nothing has been forthcoming from Jones in more than a month since the issuance of the Order, despite this Court's having referred in the last paragraph of the Order to one possible effort that Jones might undertake to cure the problem identified in the Order. This Court cannot of course act on one litigant's behalf in its handling of an action on the merits. If then Jones fails to tender a new Motion in appropriate form on or before February 24, 2017, this Court would be constrained to dismiss this action for want of prosecution.
/s/_________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge Date: February 10, 2017