Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

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.

Upon remand to the court after affirming one of his convictions, the district court granted a variance from the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines range for career offenders and re-sentenced defendant for unlawfully distributing more than 5 grams of cocaine base. The court held that, although defendant correctly pointed out that the amount of cocaine base of which he stood convicted was 21.1 grams, not the 29.6 grams of cocaine base stated in the Presentence Report and adopted by the district court in re-sentencing him, both amounts fell within the same quantity range under U.S.S.G. 2D1.1(c)(7) and carried a maximum sentence of 40 years. Thus, defendant's Guidelines offense level would have been 34 regardless. The court also held that defendant could not show error, much less plain error, where the district court refused to consider the effect of pending legislation. The court further held that the district court did not plainly err, in violation of defendant's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, by referencing at re-sentencing his failure to express remorse and accept responsibility. The court finally held that defendant's challenge to the reasonableness of his below-Guidelines re-sentencing failed to demonstrate that the district court abused its discretion in applying the career offender guideline provision. Accordingly, the court affirmed the amended judgment.

The United States appealed the district court's grant of the writ of habeas corpus to the detainee. Three errors in the district court's analysis required the court to vacate that decision. First, the court failed to accord an official government record a presumption of regularity. Second, the district court failed to determine the detainee's credibility even though the court relied on his declaration to discredit the Government's key evidence. Third, the court's unduly atomized approach to the evidence was one the court rejected. The court remanded so the district court could evaluate the detainee's credibility as needed in light of the totality of the circumstances.

This suit involved a challenge to the "minimum essential coverage provision," which required all "applicable individual[s]" to purchase and maintain "minimum essential coverage" for each month beginning in January 2014 under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Act), Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119. Appellants, four United States citizens and federal taxpayers, sought declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent various U.S. Government officials and agencies from enforcing the minimum essential coverage provisions. They argued that the mandate exceeded Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause and substantially burdened appellants' religious exercise, in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq. The district court rejected appellants' challenge to the Act and they appealed. Despite questions raised as to the court's subject matter jurisdiction, the court concluded that it had jurisdiction and affirmed the district court's conclusion that the Act was constitutional.

In this case, defendant invoked the Sentencing Commission's reductions in the offense level for certain crack cocaine offenses. The district court denied defendant's motion, noting on the record a host of facts about defendant's criminal record and his disciplinary infractions in prison. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court failed to determine the extent of the reduction for which he was eligible before denying his motion. In particular, defendant believed that the court could have underestimated the permissible reduction in the sentencing range, and that this hypothetical underestimate could have played a role in the court's refusal to make any reduction at all. Although the court agreed with defendant that a motion under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) required the court first to compute the sentence reduction available, the court found that the record established that it did so.

Appellant appealed his conviction and sentence on two counts of attempted tax evasion. Appellant argued that the government failed to prove the element of tax loss because it relied upon a flawed calculation under the "cash method of proof" and attributed to appellant $1.9 million of alleged gain when those funds, as a matter of law, belonged to his two corporations. Appellant challenged his sentence to the extent it rested upon the allegedly incorrect calculation of tax loss. The court found no error in the district court's denial of defendant's motions for judgment of acquittal. The court also held that, because a rational trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt a tax was due and owing on $300,000 of income, the court left for another day how best to interpret the dictum in James v. United States. The court affirmed the sentence because the district court made sufficient factual findings at sentencing to support the inclusion of the $1.9 million in the calculation of tax loss.

This case stemmed from the District's adoption of the Firearms Registration Amendment Act of 2008 (FRA), D.C. Law 17-372, which amended the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, D.C. Law 1-85. Plaintiffs challenged, both facially and as applied to them, the provisions of the District's gun laws, new and old, requiring the registration of firearms and prohibiting both the registration of "assault weapons" and the possession of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds of ammunition. Plaintiffs argued those provisions were not within the District's congressionally delegated legislative authority or, if they were, then they violated the Second Amendment. The court held that the District had authority under D.C. law to promulgate the challenged gun laws, and the court upheld as constitutional the prohibitions of assault weapons and of large-capacity magazines and some of the registration requirements. The court remanded the other registration requirements to the district court for further proceedings because the record was insufficient to inform the court's resolution of the important constitutional issues presented.

Plaintiffs brought this action against the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, seeking to obtain documents relating to the government's use of cell phone location data in criminal prosecutions. The district court directed the release of certain specified documents and upheld the Department's decision to withhold others. The court affirmed the district court's order requiring the release of the specified documents. The court held, however, that because there were too many factual uncertainties regarding the remaining documents, the court vacated the balance of the district court's decision and remanded the case for further development of the record.

Appellant, a detainee at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the district court erred in concluding that intelligence reports offered by the government to prove his membership in the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) cell were reliable. The court held that there was no error in the district court's careful consideration of the evidence and affirmed the denial of appellant's petition.

Appellant, a former official of the District of Columbia Office of the Inspector General (OIG), claimed that he was fired in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights by refusing to sign an affidavit his employer drafted for him in response to a former subordinate's employment discrimination claim and instead, appellant rewrote the affidavit in a manner critical of the OIG's decision to terminate the subordinate. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the OIG on the First Amendment retaliation claim and appellant petitioned for rehearing. The court held that because appellant spoke as a government employee, the district court rightly granted summary judgment in favor of appellant's employer on this retaliation claim. Therefore, the petition for rehearing was denied.