Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

This appeal was from the denial of a motion for attorneys fees and costs under the citizen-suit provision of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1540(g)(4). Appellants sued the FWS, alleging that the agency violated the ESA by refusing to process applications for permits to import as hunting trophies Canadian wood bison, a listed species, for nearly nine years. The court affirmed the denial of appellants' motions for attorneys fees and costs where the agency's delay in processing the import permit applications was an instance of agency delay on a matter not subject to firm time constraints. Appellants' remaining argument lacked merit. View "Conservation Force, et al v. Salazar, et al" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the EPA's rulemaking regarding hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). At issue was whether section 112(c)(6) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7412(c)(6), required the EPA to impose the same stringency levels in standards for non-112(c)(6) HAPs occurring at section 112(c)(6) sources that it did for section 112(c)(6) HAPs. The EPA rejected the claim that section 112(c)(6)'s cross-reference to section 112(d)(2) required that the EPA subject all HAPs emitted by a section 112(c)(6) source to standards at the stringency level specified by section 112(d)(2). The EPA also made clear that, despite language in the Gold Mine Rule arguably suggesting that it covered "fugitive emissions" - namely emissions from certain sources - in fact the rule did not address such emissions. The court rejected petitioners' claims challenging the EPA's rulemaking and affirmed the EPA's order. View "Desert Citizens Against Pollution, et al v. EPA, et al" on Justia Law

Sierra Club challenged a determination of the EPA, which announced that it had met the regulatory obligations imposed on it by section 112(c)(6) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7412(c)(6). The court concluded that the determination was a legislative rulemaking subject to the notice-and-comment provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 553. Because the EPA issued the determination without providing notice and opportunity for comment, the court vacated and remanded for the agency to follow those procedures. View "Sierra Club v. EPA, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant filed a motion challenging his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 after he failed to obtain reversal of his conviction. The motion was filed within the one-year limitation of section 2255(f), but did not include his claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The government therefore maintained that this later-filed claim was not properly before the court. The court held that equitable tolling applied to section 2255 motions. Here, the later-filed claim was not properly before the court because defendant was diligent in researching his claim and post-conviction counsel acknowledged that the failure to include the ineffective assistance claim in the timely section 2255 motion was due solely to his own error. On the merits, however, the court concluded that defendant failed to meet his burden under Strickland v. Washington. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McDade" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to copyright infringement and mail fraud. Pursuant to the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A, the district court ordered him to pay restitution to Adobe Systems in an amount equivalent to the revenue he received from his sales of the pirated products. The court vacated the order because the government failed to meet its burden to present evidence from which the district court could determine Adobe Systems' actual loss as a result of the pirated sales. View "United States v. Fair" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of drug related offenses and sentenced before Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA), Pub. L. No. 111-220, section 2, 124 Stat. 2372, which reduced the disparity between the treatment of crack and powder cocaine. The court rejected defendant's argument that the FSA applied to him because his case was on appeal when the Act was passed; that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to postpone sentencing until after passage of the Act; and that the district court erred substantively and procedurally by adding the additional sentence for perjury to the mandatory minimum. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Fields" on Justia Law

The Hospital challenged the Board's determination that a "wall to wall" bargaining unit of the Hospital's professional and non-professional employees was appropriate. The court rejected the Hospital's claim that the Health Care Rule violated Section 9(c)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 159(c)(5), because it endorsed the extent of a union's organization as the controlling factor in unit determination. The court also rejected the Hospital's claim that the Board violated the Rule because the Union was required to show and the Board was required to find extraordinary circumstances to join together a number of the Rule's designated units. The court further rejected the Hospital's procedural objections to the Board's underlying proceedings. Accordingly, the petitions for review were denied and the Board's cross-applications for enforcement were granted. View "San Miguel Hospital Corp. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Military chaplains, all non-liturgical Protestants, alleged that the Navy systematically discriminated against members of their religious denominations in the awarding of promotions. The district court denied plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that they lacked Article III standing and, alternatively, were unlikely to succeed on the merits. The court concluded that at least those plaintiffs whose promotions would likely be considered by future selection boards operating under the challenged policies have standing to pursue claims for injunctive relief. The court also concluded that the district court's resolution of plaintiffs' denominational preference theory was not based on factual findings that the court could review for clear error. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's determination that plaintiffs lacked standing to seek injunctive relief. The court also vacated the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings. View "Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Church, et al v. United States Navy, et al" on Justia Law

Appellant pleaded guilty to unlawful possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of cocaine base and was sentenced to 210 months of imprisonment, five years of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment. On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence on two primary grounds: (1) the sentence violated the ex post facto clause because the Sentencing Guidelines Manual applied by the district court was promulgated after he committed the offense of conviction and could have resulted in a harsher sentence than the one yielded by the Manual in effect at the time of the offense; and (2) the district court had an erroneously limited view of its discretion to impose a below-Guidelines sentence following the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker. Although the court rejected appellant's ex post facto argument, the court was persuaded by his claim as to the district court's concept of its discretion. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Terrell" on Justia Law

This case raised questions about the scope of the Executive's authority to prosecute war crimes under current federal statutes. This particular dispute involved the military commission conviction of petitioner, an al Qaeda member who worked for Osama bin Laden. The court concluded that: (1) despite petitioner's release from custody, this case was not moot; (2) consistent with Congress's stated intent and so as to avoid a serious Ex Post Facto Clause issue, the court interpreted the Military Commissions Act of 2006, 10 U.S.C. 821, not to authorize retroactive prosecution of crimes that were not prohibited as war crimes triable by military commission under U.S. law at the time the conduct occurred; and (3) when petitioner committed the relevant conduct from 1996-2001, Section 821 provided that military commissions may try violations of the "law of war." Because the court read the Act not to retroactively punish new crimes, and because material support for terrorism was not a pre-existing war crime under Section 821, petitioner's conviction for material support for terrorism could not stand. The court reversed the judgment of the Court of Military Commission Review and directed that petitioner's conviction for material support for terrorism be vacated. View "Hamdan v. United States" on Justia Law