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

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

Upon being retried after a mistrial in his criminal case, appellant had requested that two stipulations entered into during his first trial not be enforced. The court joined other circuits in applying the general rule on stipulations to criminal prosecutions and found no abuse of discretion by the district court. The district court reasonably viewed the stipulations as affirmative evidentiary admissions in the prosecution of the indicted counts. Appellant failed to demonstrate manifest injustice in being held to the stipulations; he had a full opportunity to present evidence, call witnesses, and argue to the jury that the phone records were inconsistent and thus inaccurate and due little weight. Moreover, the authenticity of the records was a peripheral issue at his trial and any error in admitting the stipulations was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Kanu" on Justia Law

Appellants filed suit claiming that the FWS had unlawfully denied their requests for permits to import hunting trophies taken from elephant hunts in Zambia in 2005 and 2006. The district court rejected appellants' claims and granted summary judgment to the Government. Because this matter was unripe for review when the district court heard the case and issued its decision, the record on appeal was incomplete. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for further consideration. View "Marcum, et al v. Salazar, et al" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of one count of bank robbery and two counts of attempted bank robbery and was sentenced to concurrent terms of 132 months on each count. On appeal, defendant challenged his conviction and sentence. The court concluded that under 18 U.S.C. 3162(a)(2)'s waiver provision, appellant waived his right to seek dismissal under section 3162(a)(1) based on an untimely indictment; appellant's challenge of the district court's failure to order a competency hearing ex mero motu was rejected; and the district court properly imposed a 2-point enhancement for obstruction of justice based on appellant's deliberate misrepresentations. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Hines" on Justia Law

Appellee brought a lawsuit challenging 11 C.F.R. 104.20(c)(9), a regulation promulgated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), that purported to implement section 201(f)(2)(F) of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), 2 U.S.C. 434. The court held that appellee easily satisfied the requirements of 5 U.S.C. 702 and demonstrated his Article III standing by showing that he would be unable to obtain disclosure of information under the BCRA because of the allegedly unlawful restrictions imposed by section 104.20(c)(9). On the merits, the court held that the district court erred in holding that Congress spoke plainly when it enacted 2 U.S.C. 434(f), thus foreclosing any regulatory construction of the statute by the FEC. Moreover, employing traditional tools of statutory construction, the court did not find that Congress had an intention on the precise question at issue in this case. Indeed, it was doubtful that, in enacting 2 U.S.C 434(f), Congress even anticipated the circumstances that the FEC faced when it promulgated section 104.20(c)(9). The court reversed and vacated summary judgment in favor of appellee, remanding to the district court. Upon remand, the district court shall first refer the matter to the FEC for further consideration. View "Van Hollen, Jr. v. FEC, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of international drug trafficking and drug trafficking with intent to provide financial support to a terrorist. On appeal, defendant challenged his conviction and life sentence for narcoterrorism. He also claimed that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. The court affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence but remanded for the district court to hold an evidentiary hearing on the claim of ineffective assistance because defendant raised colorable claims under both Strickland prongs and the trial record did not conclusively show whether he was entitled to relief. View "United States v. Mohammed" on Justia Law

Appellants, researchers in the field of adult stem cells who oppose the use of federal funding for the development of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, filed a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the Secretary's implementation of regulations allowing federal funding of such research. The court, applying Chevron analysis, held that the NIH had reasonably interpreted the Dickey-Wicker Amendment's ban on funding "research in which . . . embryos are destroyed" to allow federal funding of ESC research. Further, the preliminary-injunction exception was not applicable to the law-of-the-case preclusion. The court also held that the NIH's interpretation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment's actual language was reasonable and the NIH's decision to dismiss the comments categorically objecting to ESC was not arbitrary or capricious. Accordingly, the court affirmed summary judgment in favor of the government. View "Sherley, et al. v. Sebelius, et al." on Justia Law