Background
Celeste M. Gonsalves filed an original petition for a writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court of Hawaiʻi on July 6, 2026, arising from Case No. 1CTR-23-0000081. She also moved to proceed in forma pauperis.
Gonsalves later moved to dismiss her petition, moved to withdraw that dismissal motion, and ultimately moved to withdraw the mandamus petition on September 14, 2026.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court granted Gonsalves’s motion to withdraw her petition and dismissed the July 6 mandamus petition without prejudice.
The court denied all remaining pending motions as moot and waived the filing fee. The order did not address the merits of the requested writ or the underlying case.
Key Takeaways
- A petitioner may obtain dismissal without prejudice by withdrawing an original mandamus petition.
- The dismissal did not resolve the merits of Gonsalves’s request for mandamus relief.
- Once the petition was dismissed, the court treated the remaining motions as moot and waived the filing fee.
Why It Matters
The order preserves the petitioner’s ability to pursue relief later because the dismissal was without prejudice. It also illustrates that a court may dispose of related procedural motions as moot after granting withdrawal of the underlying original proceeding.