Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

A jury found David Safavian, Chief of Staff of the General Services Administration ("GSA"), guilty on four counts of a five-count indictment where his convictions were related to a golf trip he took with Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist, who had asked Safavian for information about two properties the GSA owned. At issue was whether Counts Three and Five should be vacated on the grounds of prosecutorial vindictiveness; whether Counts Two and Five should be vacated on the grounds that the government failed to prove Safavian's false statements to the ethics officer and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") were materially within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(1); and whether a new trial should be granted on Count One and Count Three where the district court improperly admitted evidence regarding the cost of the private plane. The court held that so long as Safavian's false statements were capable of influencing the course of the FBI's investigation, those statements were material within the meaning of section 1001(a)(1). The court also held that the district court did not clearly err in presuming vindictiveness on the part of the prosecution or in holding that the government overcame that presumption when it offered two reasons why the addition of Count Five was not vindictive. The court further held that its reasons for rejecting Safavian's arguments pertaining to Counts One, Two, and Three were the same as those of the district court and did not need to repeat them.

The Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians ("Buena Vista") entered into a compact with California to engage in gaming on its tribal land and then petitioned the Secretary of the Interior ("Secretary") for approval of the compact. Amador County, in which Buena Vista's land was located, challenged the Secretary's "no-action" approval claiming that the land at issue failed to qualify as "Indian land." At issue was whether Amador County lacked constitutional standing to maintain the suit and whether a compact, that was deemed approved where he failed to act within the 45 day limit, was reviewable. The court held that Amador County had standing where its allegations were more than sufficient to establish concrete and particularized harm and where Amador County could easily satisfy the requirements of causation and redressability. The court also held that where, as here, a plaintiff alleged that a compact violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act ("IGRA"), 25 U.S.C. 2710(d)(8)(C), and required the Secretary to disapprove the compact, nothing in the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. 701(a)(2), precluded judicial review of a subsection (d)(8)(C) no-action approval. Accordingly, the court remanded to give the district court the opportunity to assess the merits of the suit.