Convicted bank robber Ronald Mitchell is the epitome of the abusive litigant. As the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals noted Friday:

"(Mitchell) has filed at least sixty-five unsuccessful lawsuits and appeals in the federal courts, virtually all of
which challenged the legality of his conviction."

Vexing!

And in the ruling, the appellate panel rejected Mitchell's latest effort to proceed in forma pauperis. In other words, citing Mitchell's vexingly long litigation history, the appellate court said he'll have to pay his full court fees if he wants to continue.

But here's the thing. It appears that while Mitchell lost his latest court bid, his student counsel -- Sara Kaiser of the Georgetown University Law Center -- secured some useful precedent for other prisoners. Here's why.

Even as it rejected Mitchell's suit, the appellate panel led by Judge David Tatel concluded that "prisoners who face imminent danger of serious physical injury" may be exempted from the limits imposed on abusive prison litigants. As the panel states:

"Although IFP status may be constitutionally denied to prisoners who have abused the privilege...recognizing an imminent danger exception eases any constitutional tension that might result  from denying access to the courts to prisoners facing life threatening conditions."

Mitchell couldn't make this cut, but other prisoners in the future might. So here's a case, it seems to Suits & Sentences,  that Kaiser and her fellow student counsels -- James E. Burke, Tony Diab and Prashina Gagoomal -- as well as professor Steven H. Goldblatt might reasonably consider a short-term loss and a long-term victory.