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

Defendant appealed jury convictions of four drug and firearm offenses when defendant was found with heroin worth about $30,000, two loaded guns, and $27, 730 in cash. At issue was whether the admission of the state court clerk's letters violated defendant's rights to cross-examination under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause; whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") agent's testimony about the meaning of slang was improperly admitted as lay testimony; whether the FBI agent's overview testimony was based on inadmissible hearsay; whether the judge should have instructed the jury to disregard a police officer's reference to the "two large bundles" near the gun; and whether the judge's finding that defendant had a prior drug conviction and reliance on that prior conviction to double defendant's mandatory minimum sentence violated defendant's Sixth Amendment right. The court held that defendant's Sixth Amendment right was violated where the clerk's letters were testimonial but he was not subject to cross-examination. The court also held that the FBI agent's interpretation of slang was admissible only as expert testimony but that the error was harmless. The court further held that the FBI agent's objected-to testimony at the beginning of trial was not based on hearsay; the district court sufficiently instructed the jury to disregard the reference to the "bundles;" and the judge's finding about defendant's prior drug conviction did not violate the Sixth Amendment.

Appellant appealed a denial of his habeas corpus petition after he was captured by Northern Alliance forces in December 2001 and transferred to American custody in January of the following year and detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At issue was whether the district court erred in finding that statements appellant made to American interrogators in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay were voluntary and relying on those statements despite the government's failure to provide sufficient evidence corroborating their content. The court held that there was no need to consider these issues where the record contained sufficient facts, which were neither affected by the alleged coercion nor by the lack of corroboration, to support the district court's conclusion that appellant was "part of" al Qaeda at the time of his capture.

Plaintiffs filed a class action suit for damages against defendant, a former United States Marshal, claiming that they were unconstitutionally strip searched by Deputy U.S. Marshals under defendant's direction after plaintiffs were arrested during a demonstration in September 2002. At issue was whether it was clearly established in September 2002 that strip searching an arrestee before placing him in a detention facility without individualized reasonable suspicion was unconstitutional. The court held that it need not consider whether defendant had individual suspicion as to each of the plaintiffs where there was no clearly established constitutional prohibition in 2002 of strip searching arrestees without individualized, reasonable suspicion and therefore, defendant was entitled to qualified immunity and summary judgment.