218
Thomas, J., dissenting
forma pauperis status and with respect to appointing counsel. When a natural person seeks the benefits of § 1915, a court will often allow that person to proceed in forma pauperis but refuse to appoint counsel. Under such circumstances, the person may either obtain counsel elsewhere or proceed pro se. When an artificial person seeks the benefits of § 1915, a court might likewise permit that "person" to proceed in forma pauperis but refuse to appoint counsel. Under these circumstances, the artificial person has fewer options than a natural person: It can either obtain counsel elsewhere or lose the opportunity to appear in federal court. That an artificial entity without funds may in some circumstances be unable to have its case heard in federal court, however, does not prove that Congress intended to exclude such an entity from the benefits of the in forma pauperis statute. An artificial entity's inability to proceed pro se bears upon the extent to which such an entity may benefit from § 1915, but it has no bearing upon whether it may benefit. And that, after all, is the question presented in this case.
The second "contextual feature" on which the Court focuses is the use of the word "poverty" in § 1915(d). "Poverty," in the Court's view, is a "human condition"; artificial entities "may be insolvent, but they are not well spoken of as 'poor.' " Ante, at 203.
I am not so sure.6 "Poverty" may well be a human condition in its "primary sense," ibid., but I doubt that using the word in connection with an artificial entity departs in any significant way from settled principles of English usage.
6 Nor, apparently, are petitioners. At oral argument counsel for petitioners was asked whether the word "poverty" in § 1915(d) "helps" him, since one does not "usually think of a corporation as making an affidavit of poverty." Tr. of Oral Arg. 11. In response, petitioners' counsel said that he "really d[id] believe that a bankrupt corporation could make an affidavit of poverty," id., at 11-12, and conceded that he did not "pin much" on the word "poverty," id., at 12.
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