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

Defendant appealed his conviction for attempted enticement of a minor and for traveling across state lines with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. At issue was whether the evidence was sufficient to support his convictions; whether his counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel; and whether the conditions of supervised release the district court imposed were erroneous. The court held that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find the necessary intent beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed the crimes. The court remanded defendant's ineffective assistance claims for analysis by the district court in the first instance. The court further held that defendant's challenge to the condition that restricted his loitering in arcades and parks and on possessing a camera were foreclosed by United States v. Love where the Love court withheld the same conditions on plain error review. The court also held that the computer-related conditions of supervised release were not plainly erroneous.

In 1988, defendant was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape while armed; assaulting, resisting or interfering with a police officer with a dangerous weapon; and two counts of first-degree burglary while armed. Defendant was sentenced to prison for 18 years to life and while defendant was in prison, the District of Columbia enacted the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA), D.C. Code 22-4001 to -4017. Defendant challenged SORA under various provisions of the U.S. Constitution, most notably the Ex Post Facto Clause. The court held that, like the sex offender registration requirement in Smith v. Doe, SORA's registration requirement did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause where neither the Council of District Columbia's intent nor SORA's effects were so punitive as to render SORA a form of punishment. The court also held that defendant failed to show that he was entitled to relief in regards to his Fifth Amendment claims. The court further rejected defendant's Eighth Amendment and equal protection claim and defendant's claim under the D.C. Human Rights Act. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Petitioner was incarcerated when he petitioned the court for writs of mandamus to prevent the district court from transferring two of his civil cases to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The court had recently held that the filing fee provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 38 U.S.C. 1915(b), applied to a prisoner who filed a petition for writ of mandamus in connection with an underlying civil case. At issue was whether the PLRA's three-strikes provision, section 1915(g), likewise applied to a mandamus petition in an underlying civil case. The court held that petitioner's mandamus petitions were subject to the PLRA's three-strikes provision and consequently, petitioner was barred from proceeding in forma pauperis where the underlying actions, which the district court ordered to be transferred to Maryland, were civil in nature. Therefore, the court denied the motions for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and ordered petitioner to pay the full fee in each case before the court would consider his petitions.

Petitioner petitioned the court on July 14, 2010, for a writ of mandamus to compel the district court to grant him in forma pauperis status and permit him to file his civil rights damages suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983. At issue was whether a dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim based on Heck v. Humphrey counted as a "strike" under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 38 U.S.C. 1915(g). The court concluded that it did and joined the Fifth and Tenth Circuits in holding that in the absence of proof "that the conviction or sentence ha[d] been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus," the petitioner failed to state a claim for purposes of section 1915(g). Accordingly, because petitioner, while incarcerated, had filed at least three civil actions that were dismissed on the ground that they were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim, and he had neither offered any valid reason as to why he should not be required to pay in full the appellate filing fee before the court would consider his mandamus petition, nor claimed he was in imminent danger within the meaning of the exception under section 1915(g) of the PLRA's three-strikes provision, the court denied petitioner's motion for leave to appeal in forma pauperis and ordered him to pay the full fee before the court would consider his petition.

Judicial Watch filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(4)(B), asking the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to disclose records of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that showed how much money they gave to political campaigns. At issue was whether the requested documents were "agency records" for purposes of FOIA. The court held that the FHFA's unexercised right to use and dispose of the records requested in this case was not enough to subject those records to FOIA where the FHFA had not read or relied on the records in any way. The court held that because it held that FHFA did not control the records, it need not reach FHFA's alternative argument.

Appellant challenged a judgment of the district court affirming the Social Security Administration's (SSA) denial of his application for disability benefits. Appellant contended that the ALJ did not properly apply the "treating physician rule" in evaluating his application and further argued that new evidence had come to light that warranted a remand to the agency. The court held that the ALJ did not, as required by the treating physician rule, explain his reasons for rejecting the opinion of appellant's treating physician. The court also held that a letter from the Board of Medicine validating appellant's complaint, as well as a judicial determination that a physician's report contained a false representation, qualified as new evidence within the meaning of 42. U.S.C. 405(g). Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

Appellant appealed the decision of the district court to detain him prior to trial where appellant was considered a flight risk. At issue was whether the recorded findings, even if not in the form required by the Bail Reform Act (Act), 18 U.S.C. 3142, were sufficient to support the conclusion that appellant's pretrial detention was necessary in order to assure his presence at trial. The court held that because the district court failed to conform to the requirements of section 3142(g), i(l), the court must remand the case for the district court to consider all the relevant facts and to prepare findings of fact and a statement of reasons in support of appellant's pretrial detention pursuant to the Act, or otherwise to order appellant's pretrial release subject to appropriate conditions.

Six defendants appealed from judgments of conviction on multiple charges related to a drug distribution business, including drug conspiracy, RICO conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, murder, and other related charges in violation of federal and District of Columbia laws. On appeal, defendants asserted numerous issues of error covering, among other things, evidentiary issues, conduct of the trial, prosecutorial misconduct, and jury instructions. Upon review, the court held that most of the asserted errors either were not erroneous or were harmless. As to one category of issue involving alleged violations of the Confrontation Clause, a Supreme Court decision intervening between the trial and the court's consideration of the case compelled the court to remand convictions for some drug charges (Counts 126-138) for further consideration in light of Bullcoming v. New Mexico. The court also remanded for further proceedings for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel raised by Calvin Smith (Counts 4 and 5) and vacated one murder conviction as to Rodney Moore that, as the parties agree, merged with another conviction (Count 32). Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part.

This was an appeal from the denial of the petition of a detainee at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay for a writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the district court erred in determining that the detainee was being lawfully detained on the record as it stood before that court and whether the district court's procedural errors deprived him of a meaningful opportunity to develop a record upon which he could challenge his detention. The court rejected the detainee's contention that the district court's findings of fact were clearly erroneous and because those findings were enough to establish that the detainee was "part of the Taliban or al Qaeda," the court rejected his contention that the record before the court was insufficient to establish the lawfulness of his detention. Given the time the detainee's attorneys had after their receipt of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal record, the district court's grant of leave to file an amended traverse, and the absence of any subsequent request for additional time or discovery, the court held that the detainee had failed to show that he was prejudiced by the denial of the thirty-day continuance. The court also held that, in light of the circumstances, there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to issue further discovery orders without a showing that there was a basis for believing that the requests satisfied the Case Management Order's predicate conditions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the petition.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of identity theft as part of a plea agreement where defendant had treated hundreds of patients while falsely representing that he was a licensed physician. In determining defendant's sentence, the district court increased his sentence under U.S.S.G. 3A1.1(b)(1) because some of his patients were children with serious mental health conditions. On appeal, defendant disputed the increase in his offense level, contending that section 3A1.1(b)(1)'s 2-level adjustment for vulnerable victims applied only to victims of defendant's offense of conviction, who in this case would include only those victims who suffered financial loss. The court disagreed and held that the adjustment applied not only to victims of the offense of conviction, but also to victims of defendant's relevant conduct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.