UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

The United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois has adopted Emergency Local Rule 45.1 effective June 7, 2007.

Rule 45.1 Issuance of Blank Subpoenas

In a Civil Case, the Clerk shall not issue blank subpoenas to a pro se party except upon order of the judge to whom the case is assigned.


Commentary:

The civil cases in the district with pro se parties are almost entirely civil rights litigation by inmates of the penitentiary. Putting blank, signed subpoenas in the hands of these litigants to send out as they see fit is a grave mistake. Inmates will trade and traffic them within the penal institutions as they have done in the past. Moreover, inmates have sent signed subpoenas to persons who have no information of evidentiary value in the pending cases, e.g. the Governor of Illinois or the President of the United States. At the pretrial conferences in these pro se cases, the plaintiffs regularly list persons as witnesses who have no relevant information to provide. When they do name a witness with relevant information in the case who is not under the defendants’ control, the court has the clerk send the subpoena out to the address supplied by the Department of Corrections. This practice by the court and the clerk’s office guards against the inmate having access to the witnesses’ home address. In short, the proposed rule prevents abuse by the pro se litigants and still gives them the use of the subpoena when it is warranted. Everything that can be said about the potential abuse of the subpoena power of the court in the pro se inmate cases can be said about the use of subpoenas in any pro se civil case.