Opinion
6:18-cr-10085-EFM 6:22- cv-01101-EFM
02-09-2023
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. EBUBE OTUONYE, Defendant-Petitioner,
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
ERIC F. MELGREN, CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Before the Court is pro se Defendant-Petitioner Ebube Otuonye's Motion to Strike (Doc. 204) the United States' Response in Opposition to Defendant's motion to vacate his sentence (Doc. 190). The United States Response in its original form numbers 103 pages, well in excess of the 50-page limitation in place at the time of filing. On January 26, 2022, the Court issued a show cause order as to why the Response should not be stricken from the record as incompatible with the Court's page limitation for responsive briefings.
The United States responded by claiming ignorance of this Court's rules regarding page limitations. Recognizing ignorance as no excuse, the United States also listed several reasons for its extraordinarily long brief-a few have merit. Namely, the specificity and numerosity of Defendant's factual allegations and legal arguments in his memorandum in support of his motion to vacate require many pages to properly respond to them. The United States also reformatted its brief to bring its page count to “merely” 76 pages. Of course, this is still far more than this Court's page limitation.
However, having examined the pleadings at issue, the Court finds good cause to not strike the United States' Response. So far, each of the parties' briefings have remained mostly on point and relatively concise, especially considering the number of Defendant's alleged grounds for relief. Even though the United States' Response could have been shorter, it is the rare legal brief that could not benefit from further editing to improve its brevity. And to avoid prejudicing Defendant in his reply, the Court expands his page limitation for that reply to 100 pages. The Court is confident-based on Defendant's intelligence and comparatively remarkable briefings for a pro se litigant-that this limitation will create no difficulty for Defendant. For those reasons, Defendant's Motion to Strike is denied.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendants' Motion to Strike (Doc. 204) is DENIED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant's page limitation for his Reply will be set at 100 pages.
IT IS SO ORDERED.