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

Defendant, convicted of numerous violent crimes including first-degree murder, appealed the denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus based on the ineffective assistance of counsel. The court rejected defendant's contention that the limitations period of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1), was tolled until 2009 because, until the court's decision in Williams v. Martinez, the court's case law barred him from bringing his claim in federal court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the petition and dismissal of the action. View "Head v. Wilson" on Justia Law

Prairie State challenges the Commission’s decision to sustain the Secretary’s citations against it for operating without approved, mine-specific plans for roof support and ventilation at Prairie State’s underground coal mine at Lively Grove in southern Illinois. Principally at issue was which standard the Commission should use when it reviews the Secretary’s citation of an operator for failure to follow an approved, mine-specific plan. The court assumed, without deciding, that Chevron governs the court's consideration of that question, as Prairie State failed to contest the Secretary’s assertion that it does. The court held that the Secretary’s judgments regarding the suitability of mine-specific safety plans are entitled to deference under the Mine Act, 30 U.S.C. 801 et seq., and reject the further claims of error. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Prairie State Generating Com. v. Secretary of Labor" on Justia Law

This case arose out of the Tax Court’s determination that Petaluma was a sham entity and so would be disregarded for tax purposes, resulting in the potential imposition of penalties against individual partners for underreporting their taxable income. At issue in this third appeal was whether the Tax Court had jurisdiction at the current, partnership-level stage to determine the applicability of the penalties to the individual partners, or whether that determination instead must await the commencement of separate, partner-level proceedings against each partner. Assuming that a regulation in fact is necessary to create jurisdiction in the Tax Court, the court concluded that a different (and permanent) regulation is the operative one for purposes of conferring jurisdiction. Therefore, the court concluded that the Tax Court had jurisdiction to decide the applicability of penalties to Petaluma's partners. View "Petaluma FX Partners v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

This appeal involves a Son of BOSS tax shelter, which abuses the partnership form of doing business by “employ[ing] a series of transactions to create artificial financial losses that are used to offset real financial gains, thereby reducing tax liability.” At issue was whether and when the Tax Court may apply a penalty to a taxpayer who underpays his taxes by participating in a partnership that was nothing more than an intricate tax shelter. In this case, the parties recognize that United States v. Woods answered the questions about the Tax Court’s jurisdiction over penalties and outside basis. Taxpayer concedes rightly that the Tax Court properly applied his penalty when that court conducted its review of the partnership and its items, and the court affirmed the Tax Court on this point. In turn, the IRS acknowledges correctly that the Tax Court lacked jurisdiction to determine that the Tigers Eye partners had no basis in the partnership, and the court reversed the portion of the Tax Court’s decision that did so. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Logan Trust v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

Five defendants, convicted of charges related to their involvement in a massive drug distribution organization and sentenced to life imprisonment, appealed their convictions and sentences. On appeal, defendants raise numerous issues. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the guilty verdicts; the omission of a sentence that the parties had agreed to include in the jury instructions did not render the jury instructions erroneous; the court rejected defendants' joinder arguments, concluding that the indictment alleged that the local and federal offenses were committed as part of a common scheme or plan; any error in admitting the testimony of a certain FBI agent was harmless; there was no plain error in admitting autopsy reports; the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding defendants' expert testimony; the district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to conduct a mid-trial voir dire of the jury; the court will not disturb the district court's well-supported determination that the alleged improper juror activity did not occur; defendants failed to carry their burden of establishing the appearance or existence of judicial bias and the district judge did not abuse his discretion by denying the motion to recuse; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendant Edelin's motion to discharge counsel. The court vacated Defendant Edelin and Johnsons' sentence under Booker; remanded Defendant Bostick and Marbury's sentence to determine whether the district court would impose different sentences, more favorable to defendants, under the advisory Guidelines; and affirmed Defendant Edelin's sentence. View "United States v. Bostick" on Justia Law

Relator filed a qui tam suit against AT&T and nineteen of its subsidiaries. At issue is whether an earlier and still pending qui tam lawsuit filed against a single AT&T subsidiary bars this suit under the False Claims Act’s first-to-file rule, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5), which prohibits qui tam actions that rely on the same material fraudulent actions alleged in another pending lawsuit. The court held that the first-to-file bar does not apply because the Wisconsin action alleges fraud based on affirmative pricing misrepresentations by seemingly rogue Wisconsin Bell employees. The present complaint, by contrast, alleges fraud and its concealment arising from a centralized and nationwide corporate policy of failing to enforce known statutory pricing requirements. In the alternative, the complaint does not fail to plead the alleged fraud with sufficient particularity under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) where the complaint lays out in detail the nature of the fraudulent scheme, the specific governmental program at issue, the specific forms on which misrepresentations were submitted or implicitly conveyed, the particular falsity in the submission’s content, its materiality, the means by which the company concealed the fraud, and the timeframe in which the false submissions occurred. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "USA ex rel. Todd Heath v. AT&T, Inc." on Justia Law

Harman and three of its officers are alleged to have knowingly and recklessly propped up the Company’s stock price by making materially false and misleading statements about the Company’s financial condition and by failing to disclose related material adverse facts in violation of federal securities laws. At issue is whether the complaint stated a plausible claim of securities fraud with respect to three alleged statements that focus primarily on the status of the Company’s personal navigational device (“PND”) products. The court held that, although the challenge to the forward-looking nature of two statements was forfeited, the complaint plausibly alleges that those statements were not entitled to safe harbor protection because the accompanying cautionary statements were misleading insofar as they failed to account for historical facts about PNDs that would have been important to a reasonable investor. Further, the third statement, in the Company’s annual report, is plausibly understood, in the alleged circumstances, as a specific statement about its recent financial performance and not mere puffery. Accordingly, the court reversed the dismissal of the complaint and remanded for further proceedings. View "In Re: Harman Int'l Indus." on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to embezzling from an organization that received federal funds. On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence of 24-months in prison. Even if the district court’s loss calculation were erroneous, the court would not require it to reconsider petitioner’s sentence; the court expressly stated that it would regard the same sentence as appropriate under either party’s calculation; and because that sentence is within-Guidelines, reasonable, and thoroughly explained, there is no warrant for a remand. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Kaufman" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Guantanamo Bay detainee, raised two challenges to the constitutionality of the United States Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR). The court held that petitioner is not entitled to mandamus relief because this Court can consider his Appointments Clause and Commander-in-Chief Clause challenges on direct appeal, after the military commission renders a final judgment and the convening authority and the CMCR review it. Further, petitioner failed to demonstrate a “clear and indisputable” right to the writ. Therefore, the court denied petitioner's petition for writ of mandamus and prohibition. View "In re: Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Al-Nashir" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, employed by WASA for sixteen years, filed suit against WASA on numerous grounds, including violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., by retaliating against him for opposing racially discriminatory employment practices. The district court dismissed the complaint and plaintiff appealed. The court concluded that, because plaintiff's complaint alleged facts that, if shown, would be at least sufficient to state a prime facie case of retaliation - and perhaps enough to survive summary judgment - it necessarily alleged facts sufficient to render his claim plausible at the motion to dismiss stage. Accordingly, the court reversed the dismissal. View "Harris v. DC Water and Sewer Auth." on Justia Law