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

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

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Pub. L. No. 111-31, 123 Stat. 1776, directed the Secretary to issue regulations requiring all cigarette packages manufactured or sold in the United States to bear one of nine new textual warnings, as well as "color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking." Companies challenged the FDA's rule through which it selected nine images that would accompany the statutorily-prescribed warnings. The court held that the FDA failed to present any data showing that enacting their proposed graphic warnings would accomplish the agency's stated objective of reducing smoking rates. Therefore, the court vacated the graphic warning requirements and remanded to the FDA. The court also vacated the permanent injunction issued by the district court. View "R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., et al. v. FDA, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from a petition to review the EPA's August 2011 implementation of the statutory good neighbor requirement, the Transport Rule, also known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which defined emissions reduction responsibilities for 28 upwind States based on those States' contributions to downwind States' air quality problems. The court held that the Transport Rule exceeded the EPA's statutory authority (1) by using the good neighbor provision to impose massive emissions reduction requirements on upwind States without regard to the limits imposed by the statutory text and (2) by departing from its consistent prior approach to implementing the good neighbor provision and violating the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., because it did not allow the States the initial opportunity to implement the required reductions with respect to sources within their borders. View "EME Homer City Generation, L.P v. EPA" on Justia Law

Petitioners, trade associations whose members were part of the petroleum and food industries, filed petitions for review of two Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decisions approving the introduction of E15 - a blend of gasoline and fifteen percent ethanol - for use in select motor vehicles and engines. Petitioners were members of several industry groups, which the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals divided into an engine-products group, a petroleum group, and a food group. Petitioners contended, among other things, that EPA lacked authority under the Clean Air Act to grant partial waivers approving the use of E15. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed all petitions for lack of jurisdiction, holding that none of the petitioners had established standing to bring this action. View "Grocery Mfrs. Ass'n v. EPA " on Justia Law

The Fish and Wildlife Services, an agency in the Department of the Interior, removed the West Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel from the list of endangered species. Friends of Blackwater filed a complaint in the district court claiming (1) promulgation of the delisting rule violated the Endangered Species Act by ignoring the objective, measurable criteria in the Recovery Plan and (2) the Rule itself was arbitrary and capricious. The district court entered summary judgment for the plaintiff on the ground that the Service violated the Act by removing the squirrel from the list of endangered species when several criteria in the agency's Recovery Plan for the species had not been satisfied. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the district court erred by interpreting the Recovery Plan as binding the Secretary of the Interior in his delisting decision; and (2) the Service's action was not arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law. View "Friends of Blackwater v. Salazar" on Justia Law