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

The United States detained Nazul Gul and Adel Hamad for several years at the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay and during that time, each filed with the district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Prior to any hearing on the merits of their petitions, the United States transferred the detainees to the custody of foreign sovereigns and did not then rescind their designation as "enemy combatants." Gul and Hamad wanted to continue litigating their habeas petitions but the district court dismissed their petitions as moot because they were no longer held by the United States. Gul and Hamad subsequently appealed, arguing among other things, that their petitions were not moot because they continued to be burdened by the collateral consequences of their prior detention and continuing designation. The court held that, having determined that Gul and Hamad identified no injury sufficient to bring their cases within the court's jurisdiction under Article III, the court affirmed the order of the district court.

Appellee alleged that six U.S. Postal Inspectors wrongly caused him to be criminally prosecuted in retaliation for his public criticism of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and its personnel. The Postal Inspectors appealed the district court's qualified immunity, on appellee's claim of retaliatory inducement to prosecution in violation of his right to free speech under the First Amendment. Insofar as the appeal challenged the district court's determination that there were genuine issues of material fact, the court dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. Insofar as the district court declined to find the Postal Inspectors protected by qualified immunity based on "arguable probable cause," the court affirmed. Accordingly, the court remanded to the district court for trial on the merits.

Defendant was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and possession of a firearm during a trafficking offense. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's finding that he consented to the search of his car, and the district court's refusal at sentencing to consider all of the proffered facts concerning his relevant history and characteristics. The court held that defendant failed to show that the district court's credibility finding with regard to the police officers' testimony that he gave consent was based on "exceedingly improbable testimony" and thus clearly erroneous. A review of the record indicated that the inconsistencies between the suppression testimony and one of the officers' prior statements were not so glaring as to render incredible the officers' testimony that defendant consented to the search of his car. Nor did apparent violations of departmental protocols unrelated to defendant's consent so undermined the officers' credibility that it was clear error for the district court to credit their testimony regarding defendant's consent. A remand for resentencing, however, was required because the district court must take into account all relevant facts related to a defendant's "history and characteristics," where the sentencing record reflected that the district court appeared to have "misunderstood its sentencing authority" to consider certain proffered facts, even though the government agreed defendant properly requested the court to do so. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of conviction with regard to defendant's challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress and vacate the sentence and remanded the case for resentencing.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and two individuals petitioned for review of a decision by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to screen airline passengers by using advanced imaging technology (AIT) instead of magnetometers. EPIC argued that the use of AIT violated various federal statutes and the Fourth Amendment and, in any event, should have been the subject of notice-and-comment rulemaking before being adopted. The court granted the petition for review with respect to claims that the TSA had not justified its failure to initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking before announcing it would use AIT scanners for primary screening at airports. None of the exceptions urged by the TSA justified its failure to give notice of and receive comment upon such a rule, which was legislative and not merely interpretive, procedural, or a general statement of policy. The court denied the petition with respect to EPIC's statutory arguments and their claim under the Fourth Amendment, except their claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., which the court dismissed for lack of standing. Finally, due to the obvious need for the TSA to continue its airport security operations without interruption, the court remanded the rule to the TSA but did not vacate it.

The citizens of Kinston, North Carolina, approved a referendum switching city elections from partisan to nonpartisan. Because Kinston was located in a jurisdiction covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Act), 42 U.S.C. 1973(c)(a), the city council had no authority to implement the referendum until precleared by federal authorities, and preclearance had not occurred. A candidate for public office claiming a state-law entitlement to run under the suspended nonpartisan system, together with other plaintiffs, filed suit seeking to enjoin the Attorney General from enforcing section 5 against Kinston. Count one of plaintiffs' complaint contended that section 5, as reauthorized in 2006, exceeded Congress' Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment enforcement powers. Count two contended that amendments made to section 5 in 2006 erected a facially unconstitutional racial-preference scheme. The court held that one of the plaintiffs, the candidate for public office, had both standing and a cause of action to pursue count one and therefore, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to consider the merits of that claim. The court held that, because plaintiffs' standing with respect to count two raised complex questions unaddressed by the district court and the parties' briefs, the court vacated the district court's dismissal of that claim and remanded for further consideration.

Appellant sued her former employer alleging violations of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2601 et seq. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the employer on appellant's interference claim and entered a judgment as a matter of law on her retaliation claim. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the interference claim where appellant's allegations "focus[ed] on precisely the sorts of de minimis, intangible, and unmeasurable aspects of a job that the regulations specifically exclude[d]" pursuant to Montgomery v. Maryland. The court also agreed with the district court that no reasonable jury, relying on the evidence presented at trial, could conclude that the 2005 realignment proximately caused appellant's termination in 2008. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law on the retaliation claim.

Defendant appealed the sentence he received after pleading guilty to five counts of filing a false tax return. At issue was whether the district court erred in applying the Guidelines by increasing his base offense level and by denying him credit for acceptance of responsibility. Also at issue was whether the district court erred by varying upward from the Guidelines range pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3553(a). The court held that the district court did not err by increasing defendant's base offense level because he significantly disrupted a governmental function. The court held, however, that it was unable to determine whether in denying his credit for acceptance of responsibility and varying upward from the Guidelines range, the district court relied solely upon constitutionally permissible factors. Therefore, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded his case for resentencing.

This case stemmed from a challenge to the EPA's regulation of ozone under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7409(a). At issue was an EPA "guidance document" addressing obligations of regions still in nonattainment of a now-revoked ozone air quality standard. The court held that the Guidance qualified as a legislative rule that the EPA was required to issue through notice and comment rulemaking and that one of its features, the so-called attainment alternative, violated the Clean Air Act's plain language. Therefore, the court granted the petition for review and vacated the Guidance.

A jury found for the District of Columbia government and a detective of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)(collectively, the government), in this case alleging a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim for the use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment and common law claims for assault and battery. Appellant, as personal representative of her brother's estate, sued to recover damages for the shooting death of her brother by the detective, and she contended on appeal that she did not receive a fair trial. The principle issue concerned the district court's rulings on the inadmissibility of portions of an internal MPD report regarding an altercation between the detective and appellant's brother. A related issue involved a violation of the pretrial disclosure requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. The court found no abuse of discretion by the district court where the record revealed that it properly excluded those parts of the report likely to confuse the jury and unfairly prejudiced the government. The court also held that the government failed to comply with Rule 26(a)(2)(E) by not supplementing the medical expert's disclosure to reflect an interview with the detective on which the expert intended to rely at trial, but in view of appellant's cross-examination of the expert, after receiving the expert's interview notes, that the violation was harmless and so the district court's refusal to strike the expert's testimony was not reversible error. Accordingly, because appellant's other claims of error and her bias claim were unpersuasive, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiff, the former captain of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), filed a ten-count complaint charging the District of Columbia with racial and ethnic discrimination and retaliation against him because of a series of discrimination complaints he filed against the MPD. At issue was whether plaintiff's damages award constituted impermissible double recovery, represented compensation for two distinct juries, or reflected a single award apportioned between two theories of liability. The court found that the magistrate judge explicitly instructed the jury not to concern itself with double recovery because he had concluded "as a matter of law" that plaintiff could recover under both his federal and state law theories. Therefore, the court held that it could not presume that the jury intended to compensate plaintiff for a single injury without regard to the multiplicity of the theories pled. Accordingly, because the jury's award amounted to impermissible double recovery, the court reversed the magistrate's order denying the District's motion for judgment as a matter of law and remanded the case.