Cite as: 506 U. S. 194 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
Nary v. Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., 498 U. S. 479, 496 (1991) ("It is presumable that Congress legislates with knowledge of our basic rules of statutory construction"). In fine, a contrary "indication" may raise a specter short of inanity, and with something less than syllogistic force.
III
Four contextual features indicate that "person" in § 1915(a) refers only to individuals, the first being the provision of § 1915(d) that "[t]he court may request an attorney to represent any such person unable to employ counsel." (Emphasis added.) This permissive language suggests that Congress assumed the court would in many cases not "request" counsel, see Mallard v. United States District Court, Southern District of Iowa, 490 U. S. 296, 301-302 (1989) (holding that § 1915(d) does not authorize mandatory appointments of counsel), leaving the "person" proceeding in forma pauperis to conduct litigation on his own behalf.4 Underlying this congressional assumption are probably two others: that the "person" in question enjoys the legal capacity to appear before a court for the purpose of seeking such benefits as appointment of counsel without being represented by professional counsel beforehand, and likewise enjoys the capacity to litigate without counsel if the court chooses to provide none, in the exercise of the discretion apparently conferred by the permissive language. The state of the law, however, leaves it highly unlikely that Congress would have made either assumption about an artificial entity like an association, and thus just as unlikely that "person" in § 1915 was meant to cover more than individuals. It has been the law
4 This assumption reflects a reality well known within the legal community. See, e. g., Turner, When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Suits in the Federal Courts, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 617 (1979) (study of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 cases filed by prisoners in five districts found that the "overwhelming majority" of cases were filed in forma pauperis, and that "almost all" the cases were filed pro se).
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