Michael A. Ambri
How Judge Ambri decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Procedural preferences
Enforces service-of-process and court-order compliance firmly: after repeated OSC extensions and explicit warnings, recommends Rule 4(m) dismissal (and denial of default judgment) when a pro se plaintiff still fails to file proper proof of service.
“The Magistrate Judge's R&R noted Plaintiff had failed to provide proof of service, despite the Court's multiple extensions and warnings that failure to do so would lead to dismissal. ... recommended that this Court deny the motion and dismiss this matter without prejudice for failure to serve and failure to follow a court order.”
Cautions
On Sec.2254 habeas, applies AEDPA deference and procedural-default/fair-presentation strictly, and rejects Brady/Napue claims built on speculation that withheld evidence exists or is exculpatory.
“A habeas petitioner cannot establish a Brady claim by merely speculating that withheld evidence would have been favorable or material. ... [claims not fairly presented as federal to the highest available state court are] procedurally defaulted.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Habeas petition N = 2 |
Denied: 2 | counts only |
| Involuntary dismissal N = 2 |
Granted: 2 | counts only |
| Default judgment N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“IT IS ORDERED Magistrate Judge Michael A. Ambri's Report and Recommendation is ACCEPTED. (Doc. 10.) IT IS FURTHER ORDERED Petitioner's Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Doc. 1) is DENIED.”
“IT IS ORDERED that Petitioner's Objection (Doc. 27) is overruled, and Magistrate Judge Ambri's Report and Recommendation (Doc. 22) is accepted and adopted, as set forth above. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Petitioner's Amended Petition Under 28 U.S.C. 2254 for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Doc. 7) is denied.”
“2. Plaintiff's Order for Default Judgment -- construed as a motion for default judgment -- is DENIED. (Doc. 22.)”
“1. The R&R is ADOPTED. (Doc. 23.) ... 3. This matter is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.”
“IT IS ORDERED Magistrate Judge Ambri's R&R is ADOPTED. (Doc. 9.) This matter is DISMISSED. The Clerk of Court shall docket accordingly and close the case file.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Tucson-division magistrate (since 2023-03-16). Enumerable assigned_judge slice (2026 pending) is dominated by criminal-duty mj matters (border/immigration felony and petty-offense initial appearances/detention), Social Security disability appeals (assigned to him as magistrate), and a handful of assigned civil cases. His habeas/civil-rights merits work is REFERRAL-based (R&Rs reviewed by the district judges, in the reasoning layer). Composition only; not a grant rate or base rate.