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

Plaintiffs, a group of tax return preparers, filed a class action challenging the IRS's requirement that preparers pay a fee to obtain and renew their Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN). The DC Circuit held that the IRS acted within its authority under the Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax return preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs. The court also held that the IRS's decision to charge the fee was not arbitrary and capricious, because the IRS sufficiently rooted its decision to assess a PTIN fee in justifications independent of those rejected in Loving v. IRS, 742 F.3d 1013 (D.C. Cir. 2014). In this case, the IRS explained that the fee was based on direct costs of the PTIN program. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Montrois v. United States" on Justia Law

Appellant moved to vacate his rape and murder conviction under 28 U.S.C. 2255 and the holding in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), after the government conceded that the testimony of a forensic expert was false and misleading and that the government knew or should have known so at the time of appellant's trial.The DC Circuit reversed the district court's denial of appellant's section 2255 motion, holding that he demonstrated a reasonable likelihood that the forensic expert's admittedly false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury. In this case, without the agent's hair-comparison testimony, there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury could have accepted appellant's defense theory that he had been in the victim's apartment, but not during the day of her rape and murder. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Ausby" on Justia Law

Andrew Miller appealed an order holding him in contempt for failing to comply with grand jury subpoenas served on him by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, contending that the Special Counsel's appointment was unlawful under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Miller argued that Special Counsel Mueller is a principal officer, and thus his appointment was in violation of the Appointments Clause because he was not appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate.The DC Circuit affirmed the order finding Miller in civil contempt, holding that Miller's challenge to the appointment of the Special Counsel failed. The court held that binding precedent instructs that Special Counsel Mueller is an inferior officer under the Appointments Clause, and Congress has vested in the Attorney General the power to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of his duties. In this case, the Deputy Attorney General became the head of the Department by virtue of becoming the Acting Attorney General as a result of a vacancy created by the disability of the Attorney General through recusal on the matter. Therefore, the court held that Special Counsel Mueller was properly appointed by a head of Department, who at the time was the Acting Attorney General. View "In re: Grand Jury Investigation" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea and affirmed the district court's judgment. In this case, defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine in the United States and then later sought to withdraw his guilty plea.The court held that defendant's plea proceeding substantially complied with the requirements of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 and that any deviations were harmless; the district court communicated the essential information required by Rule 11(b)(1)(M); and defendant had actual notice of the possibility of forfeiture through the indictment. The court also held that the fact that defendant did not assert a viable claim of innocence lends further support to the district court's decision not to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. As to sentencing issues, the court held that the district court did not err by applying 12 points in sentencing enhancements and in denying defendant a three point adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. Finally, the court rejected defendant's challenges to the forfeiture element of his sentence. View "United States v. Leyva" on Justia Law

In an action filed by the government to enjoin the vertical merger between AT&T and Time Warner under Section 7 of the Clayton Act, the DC Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the government's request for a permanent injunction. At issue on appeal was the district court's findings on its increased leverage theory whereby costs for Turner Broadcasting System's content would increase after the merger, principally through threats of long-term "blackouts" during affiliate negotiations.The court held that the government failed to clear the first hurdle in meeting its burden of showing that the proposed merger was likely to increase Turner Broadcasting's bargaining leverage. Furthermore, the government's objections that the district court misunderstood and misapplied economic principles and clearly erred in rejecting the quantitative model were unpersuasive. In this case, the government offered no comparable analysis of data for prior vertical mergers in the industry that showed "no statistically significant effect on content prices" as defendants had. Additionally, the government's expert opinion and modeling predicting such increases failed to take into account Turner Broadcasting System's post-litigation irrevocable offers of no-blackout arbitration agreements, which a government expert acknowledged would require a new model. The court also held that the evidence indicated that the industry had become dynamic in recent years with the emergence of distributors of only on-demand content, such as Netflix and Hulu. View "United States v. AT&T, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Palestinians who mostly reside in the disputed West Bank territory, sued pro-Israeli American citizens and entities, including a former U.S. deputy national security advisor, claiming that the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to expel all non-Jews from the territory by providing financial and construction assistance to “settlements” and that the defendants knew their conduct would result in the mass killings of Palestinians. The claims cited the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. 1350; American-citizen plaintiffs also brought claims under the Torture Victim Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 102-256. The district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that the complaint raised nonjusticiable political questions. The D.C. Circuit reversed after holding that the court correctly treated the issue as jurisdictional. The court first identified two relevant questions: Who has sovereignty over the disputed territory Are Israeli settlers committing genocide? The court then applied the Supreme Court’s “Baker" factors, concluded that the only political question concerned who has sovereignty, and held that the question is extricable because a court could rule in the plaintiffs’ favor without addressing who has sovereignty if it concluded that Israeli settlers are committing genocide. If it becomes clear at a later stage that resolving any of the claims requires a sovereignty determination, those claims can be dismissed. View "Al-Tamimi v. Adelson" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal was whether the Ex Post Facto Clause forbids applying a current U.S. Sentencing Commission policy statement, which offers sentence reductions only to those defendants whose original sentences are not already below newly reduced guideline ranges, to a defendant whose crime occurred before that version of the policy statement took effect. Defendant claimed that he could have gotten a sentence reduction under the version of the policy statement in effect at the time of his crime.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for a sentence reduction and held that the 2006 version of USSG 1B1.10 did not apply to defendant in the first place, and thus applying its amended 2016 counterpart did not make his punishment more onerous than it otherwise would have been. Therefore, the court joined the unanimity of circuits that have held that the 2006 version of the policy statement did not by its own terms give persons in defendant's position the opportunity he claims for a reduced sentence. The court also held that the amendment's prohibition on below-guideline sentence reductions was a permissible exercise of the Sentencing Commission's discretion to determine and limit the retroactivity of its amendments. View "United States v. Alvaran-Velez" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal on mootness grounds plaintiff's action because the allegations in the complaint logically fell within a mootness exception for claims capable of repetition yet evading review. Plaintiff filed suit alleging that the BOP had violated its own policies and procedures in three ways: (1) the BOP had failed to deliver his magazine subscriptions while he was confined in special housing units (SHUs); (2) the BOP had deprived him of outside exercise while he was confined in SHUs; and (3) the BOP deprived him of meaningful access to the administrative remedy procedures.In this case, the district court dismissed the pleadings on the basis that plaintiff's transfer from the SHU rendered inapplicable the capable of repetition, yet evading review exception as a matter of law. The court held, however, that there was no logical flaw in the theory of why the mootness exception could apply. Plaintiff adequately alleged that the challenged action was too fleeting to be fully litigated, and there was no logical deficiency in plaintiff's allegation that he reasonably expects to be subjected to the same challenged deprivations in the future. View "Reid v. Inch" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the FCC's adoption of two limitations to programs that make voice and broadband services more available and affordable for low-income consumers. Petitioners argued that the limitations limited the enhanced Tribal Lifeline subsidy to services provided by eligible telecommunications carriers that utilize their own fixed or mobile wireless facilities, excluding carriers that resell services provided over other carriers' facilities (Tribal Facilities Requirement). Second, it limited the enhanced Tribal Lifeline subsidy to residents of "rural" areas on Tribal lands (Tribal Rural Limitation).The DC Circuit granted the petition for review, holding that the Commission's adoption of these two limitations was arbitrary and capricious by not providing a reasoned explanation for its change of policy that is supported by record evidence. In this case, by adopting the Tribal Facilities Requirement, the Commission's decision failed to consider the exodus of facilities-based providers; did not point to evidence that banning resellers from the Tribal Lifeline program would promote network buildout; failed to analyze the impact of the facilities requirement on Tribal residents who currently rely on wireless resellers; and ignored that the Commission's decision was a fundamental change that adversely affects the access and affordability of service for residents of Tribal lands.Likewise, by adopting the Tribal Rural Limitation, the Commission failed to consider the impact on service access and affordability. Finally, the court held that non-harmless procedural defects also existed. View "National Lifeline Association v. FCC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted a petition for review of FERC's orders finding that California and Oregon had not waived their water quality certification authority under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and that PacifiCorp had diligently prosecuted its relicensing application for the Klamath Hydroelectric Project. At issue was whether states waive Section 401 authority by deferring review and agreeing with a licensee to treat repeatedly withdrawn and resubmitted water quality certification requests as new requests. The court held that the withdrawal-and-resubmission of water quality certification requests did not trigger new statutory periods of review. Therefore, California and Oregon have waived their Section 401 authority with regard to the Project. Furthermore, the court disagreed that a finding of waiver was futile. View "Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC" on Justia Law