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

Defendant sought reversal of his conviction by a jury for unlawful possession with intent to distribute cocaine and aiding and abetting, claiming trial evidentiary errors. Because defendant elicited testimony concerning the officer's law enforcement experience with drug trafficking in an attempt to demonstrate he was conditioned to see the benign items seized from defendant's bedroom as drug paraphernalia, and elicited his opinion regarding one of those items, defendant failed to show prejudice even assuming the testimony was improperly admitted. Circuit precedent confirmed defendant's other contentions were without merit. The district court neither abused its discretion in excluding expert evidence on the ultimate question in the case, nor erred in allowing the prosecutor to ask guilt-assuming hypothetical questions of a character witness testifying about her personal opinion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction. View "United States v. Guerrero" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiring with a male accomplice to extort money from an ex-lover, a doctor, by threatening to expose their brief extramarital affair to his wife and the medical licensing board. Defendant appealed her conviction on the grounds that the district court improperly denied her a duress instruction and improperly instructed the jury on venue. The court held that the district court correctly declined to instruct the jury on the affirmative defense of duress where no reasonable juror could have found defendant lacked a legal alternative to committing the crime. Further, the conspiracy instruction given by the district court did not require the jury to find that any overt act occurred in Washington, D.C., and defendant did not ask the district court to have the jury determine venue. Therefore, the district court did not commit plain error of any kind. Accordingly, the conviction was affirmed. View "United States v. Nwoye" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from the United States' prosecution of Walter A. Forbes for securities fraud. Appellant, Forbes' defense counsel, sent out Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, requests to the SEC, seeking, among other things, the notes of SEC staff members taken during their conversations with certain government witnesses and their attorneys. On appeal, appellant argued that the Department of Justice's disclosure of 11 of the requested set of notes waived work product protection, not only for the documents that were released, but also for the remaining 103 sets of SEC notes. The court held that the controversy was moot with respect to the 11 documents because they had been disclosed by the Justice Department. As to the remaining 103 sets of notes, the court did not believe the SEC waived work product protection or that the Justice Department's action in the criminal trial had that effect. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "Williams & Connolly v. SEC" on Justia Law

American Airlines (American) petitioned for review of the TSA's denial of a request for reimbursement of American's expenditures on an "in-line" baggage-screening system in its new terminal at JFK International Airport. American argued that the TSA failed to comply with Congress's requirements for the agency's reimbursement determinations. Because the TSA either failed to base its reimbursement decision on the prioritization list mandated in 49 U.S.C. 44923 or failed to create a suitable prioritization list in the first place, the court granted American's petition and remanded to the TSA for further proceedings. View "American Airlines, Inc. v. TSA, et al." on Justia Law

The District of Columbia appealed the denial of its motion to vacate a preliminary injunction pursuant to Rule 60(b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The injunction was issued in 1995 in response to a class action complaint alleging that the District of Columbia was violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., by failing to timely pay private providers of special education services and thereby jeopardizing students' special education placements. The district court denied the motion on two grounds: (1) dissolving the injunction and subsequent payment orders "would be disruptive to the status quo" and "counter-productive to the goal" of settling the case "in short order," and (2) the District of Columbia had "overstated both the relevance and the significance" of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Horne v. Flores. The court held that the district court failed to address changed circumstances, as Flores instructed, and reversed and remanded the case to the district court to determine whether, in view of changed circumstances, the District of Columbia's Rule 60(b)(5) motion should be granted. View "Petties, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant filed a petition for habeas corpus in the district court of the District of Columbia and the district court dismissed the petition for want of jurisdiction, reasoning that defendant was required to pursue his challenge in D.C. Superior Court rather than federal court because his D.C. Code 23-110 remedy was not inadequate or ineffective. Defendant subsequently applied for a certificate of appealability (COA). The court concluded that jurists of reason would not find defendant's claim that the district court had jurisdiction "debatable" because Diamen v. United States could not be reasonably read to bar defendant from bringing his federal constitutional claims in D.C. Superior Court under section 23-110. Accordingly, the court denied the COA. View "Ibrahim v. United States, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, three environmental groups, brought suit in district court to challenge issuance of a permit authorizing the discharge of dredge and fill material into specified wetlands outside Tampa, Florida. Plaintiffs invoked three statutes: the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4332(C), the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1311(a), 1362(7), and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1536(a)(2). The district court issued a decision finding that defendants had not fully complied with its obligations under NEPA and the CWA, but rejected plaintiffs' ESA claim, granting summary judgment for plaintiffs on the first two claims and for defendants on the third. The court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, concluding that defendants did satisfy the demands of the three relevant statutes, except for failing to respond, in its treatment of the NEPA and ESA requirements, to a material contention as to the project's impact on an endangered species, the eastern indigo snake. View "Sierra Club, et al. v. Antwerp, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner petitioned for review of an order of the NLRB, holding that petitioner violated section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1) and (3), when it threatened and disciplined a certified nursing assistant and outspoken union supporter. Petitioner admitted that the nursing assistant's union activity was a motivating factor for her discipline; although other employees engaged in conduct similar to the nursing assistant's, petitioner neither investigated nor punished any one of them; and the nursing assistant was disciplined without an inquiry into her actions, as company policy required. Petitioner premised its discipline, at least in part, on the nursing assistant's expired disciplinary history, an impermissible consideration under company rules. Therefore, the court concluded that substantial evidence supported the NLRB's Wright Line determination. In light of these conclusions, the court need not consider the NLRB's alternative ground for its section 8(a)(3) ruling. View "Manor Care of Easton, PA., LLC v. NLRB" on Justia Law

This case involved the FCC's Universal Service Program, which provided subsidies to ensure that low-income consumers, schools, health care providers, and libraries have access to advanced telecommunications services and that rates and services in rural areas were "reasonably comparable" to rates and services in urban areas pursuant to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 254. At issue was the FCC's order declining to increase subsidies under the rural rates and services component of the Universal Services Program. Here, the FCC explained that "reasonable comparability" between rural and urban areas had been largely accomplished and that expansion of the high-cost support fund would "jeopardize other statutory mandates," such as extending services to schools, hospitals, and libraries, and "ensuring affordable rates in all parts of the country." Because of this, and because the FCC had promised to address state-specific issues, like those presented by Vermont and Maine, through the waiver process, its decision to leave the high-cost support mechanism unchanged was neither arbitrary nor capricious. Thus, the court denied the petition for review. View "Vermont Public Service Board, et al. v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed a licensing order of the FCC affirming a decision of the Wireless Bureau denying reconsideration of licensing actions taken by the Wireless Bureau's Mobility Division. The Mobility Division granted Thomas Kurian's request to withdraw a radio spectrum assignment application and dismissed petitioner's notification of consummation of that same assignment. Petitioner argued that the FCC's order should be reversed because the FCC and Kurian engaged in unlawful ex parte communications; the FCC failed to give proper public notice of its decisions to grant Kurian's withdrawal request; and the FCC acted arbitrarily and capriciously in rendering the order. The court held that petitioner waived its ex parte and public notice arguments, and the FCC acted neither arbitrarily nor capriciously in rendering its order affirming the Wireless Bureau's order. View "Environmentel, LLC v. FCC" on Justia Law