Justia Military Law Opinion Summaries

The Department of Defense has detained Petitioner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for over two decades. In 2008, a military commission convicted Petitioner of conspiracy to commit various war crimes. He now seeks judicial review of his ensuing life sentence. Petitioner moved to disqualify Judge Katsas based on my involvement in other Guantanamo Bay detainee litigation while serving in the Department of Justice between 2001 and 2009.   Judge Katsas denied the motion to disqualify. The court explained that Section 455 of Title 28 establishes disqualification standards for federal judges. Section 455(b) lists five specific circumstances requiring disqualification. Petitioner cites these provisions and a handful of cases applying them for the general proposition that a judge “may not hear a case in which he previously played any role.” The court wrote that Section 455(a) is a more general “catch-all” provision, and the court should not lightly use it to shift the lines specifically drawn in section 455(b). At most, that should occur only in “rare and extraordinary circumstances,” which are not present here. Judge Katsas wrote that in short, his work at DOJ does not disqualify him under the specific rules set forth in section 455(b), and no other consideration tips the balance in favor of disqualification under section 455(a). View "Ali Hamza Ahmad al Bahlul v. USA" on Justia Law

Appellants, three Sikh men, intended to join the Marines. However, existing Marines pre-enlistment requirements pertaining to hair length, beards, and a prohibition on wearing certain non-uniform items, conflicted with their faith. The Marines allowed an accommodation, but only after the men completed basic training.Appellants sought a preliminary injunction, and the district court refused. After considering the competing interests in the case, the D.C. Circuit reversed the decision as it related to two men, finding that they showed a likelihood for success on the merits and proved irreparable harm. The court remanded the third man's case for further proceedings. View "Jaskirat Singh v. David Berger" on Justia Law

Appellee, a member of the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve, pleaded guilty at a court-martial to the sexual assault of a civilian. In this collateral challenge to his sentence, Appellee argued that the statutory grant of military jurisdiction over Fleet Marine Reservists exceeds Congress’ authority under the “Make Rules Clause.” The district court held for Appellee and the DC Circuit reversed.   The court explained that whether a person may be subjected to court-martial jurisdiction turns “on one factor: the military status of the accused.” Solorio v. United States, 483 U.S. 435 (1987). Here, based on the Supreme Court’s precedents interpreting the Make Rules Clause as well as the original meaning of that Clause, the court held that a person has “military status” if he has a formal relationship with the military that includes a duty to obey military orders. As a Fleet Marine Reservist, Appellee was “actually a member or part of the armed forces,” and therefore amenable to military jurisdiction under the Make Rules Clause. The court further held that the Fifth Amendment’s Grand Jury Clause did not separately bar Appellee’s court-martial. View "Steven Larrabee v. Carlos Del Toro" on Justia Law

Miriyeva, a citizen of Azerbaijan, lawfully entered the U.S. and sought naturalization under 8 U.S.C. 1440. She enlisted in the U.S. Army through the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, under which noncitizens have an expedited path to citizenship by serving honorably in the military without first having lawful permanent residence. In 2018, USCIS approved Miriyeva’s application. Before the agency scheduled Miriyeva’s oath of citizenship ceremony, the Army sent her to basic training. During training, a medical condition ended her service. The Army described Miriyeva’s separation as “uncharacterized” since her service ended while she was still at “entry-level.” After her medical discharge, Miriyeva scheduled her oath ceremony but the agency reversed its approval of her naturalization application because the military did not describe her separation as “honorable.”Miriyeva argued that the military refers to “uncharacterized” as “separated under honorable conditions,” when required to do so and that the Army’s policy of treating an uncharacterized separation as not under honorable conditions violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the Constitution’s Uniform Rule of Naturalization Clause, and the Due Process Clause. The district court dismissed Miriyeva’s declaratory judgment suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. 1421(c), which precluded Miriyeva’s Administrative Procedure Act and constitutional claims; her Declaratory Judgment Act claim failed without a different, standalone source of jurisdiction. The D.C. Circuit affirmed. Miriyeva strayed from the statutory path for judicial review of claims intertwined with denied naturalization applications. View "Miriyeva v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services" on Justia Law

Sergeant First Class McKinney served honorably in the Army for more than 20 years before retiring in 2007. Months later, he suffered a stroke at age 46. A VA doctor opined that of McKinney’s reported exposures during service, only an October 2005 blast from a roadside bomb in Iraq was consistent with causing a TBI. The VA affirmed that McKinney had a total disability that was service-connected and permanent, which entitled him to lifetime benefits. Several years after his retirement, he applied to the Army for a Purple Heart on the ground that he suffered a TBI in the 2005 explosion. McKinney was not hit with debris during the blast and did not receive medical treatment afterward. The Army denied him a Purple Heart because it found the evidence insufficient to establish that this particular attack caused McKinney to suffer injuries that would qualify for the award.The D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial while acknowledging McKinney’s years of service and the injuries he sustained during that service. With respect to the award of a Purple Heart, however, the Army’s decision is reviewed under a deferential standard. The Army did not act arbitrarily or capriciously when it denied McKinney the Purple Heart. View "McKinney v. Wormuth" on Justia Law

A military commission was convened to try al-Tamir, apprehended in Turkey in 2006 and held at Guantanamo Bay for seven years without charges, for war crimes. Captain Waits presided over al-Tamir’s commission for two and a half years. A DOJ prosecutor was the first attorney to speak on the record. Weeks later, Waits applied to be a DOJ immigration judge. In his applications, he identified the al-Tamir commission. He received no interviews. In 2017, Waits was hired by the Department of Defense's Navy Office of the Judge Advocate General Criminal Law Division, after again mentioning his role in the commission.In 2019, the D.C. Circuit held that a military judge’s application for an immigration judge position created an appearance of bias requiring recusal, Waits disclosed his employment applications to al-Tamir and the commission. Rubin and Libretto later served on al-Tamir’s commission, Blackwood was a civilian advisor for all three judges and applied for outside employment while assisting Rubin. Libretto denied al-Tamir's motions to dismiss based on Waits’s and Blackwood’s job applications and to disqualify Libretto based on Blackwood’s continued assistance. Libretto declared that he would reconsider any of Waits’s decisions that al-Tamir identifies. The Court of Military Commission Review upheld that decision. The D.C. Circuit denied mandamus relief. The government’s offer affords al-Tamir an “adequate means” to attain the relief he seeks; Blackwood’s job search did not “clear[ly] and indisputabl[y]” disqualify the judges he served. View "In re: al-Tamir" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a defense attorney with no client, petitioned to reverse a procedural ruling excluding the public from a classified hearing in an appeal filed by other attorneys who, like plaintiff, have no client. Because most proceedings for Guantanamo Bay detainees are open to the public, the attorney's desire to watch the hearing would not normally have been a problem. However, because this particular hearing concerned classified information, the military judge closed it.The DC Circuit noted that the attorney may or may not have prudential standing, but the court need not address the issue because the court can dismiss the case based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In this case, the attorney ultimately appeals the military judge's decision to close the hearing. The court explained that the attorney does not appeal a conviction, an actual final judgment, but rather a decision. Finally, the court rejected the attorney's argument under the collateral order doctrine. View "Sundel v. United States" on Justia Law

Al Bahlul, a Yemeni national, was Osama bin Laden’s head of propaganda at the time of the September 11 attacks. After he was captured in Pakistan, Al Bahlul was convicted by a military commission in Guantanamo Bay of conspiracy to commit war crimes, providing material support for terrorism, and soliciting others to commit war crimes. The D.C. Circuit vacated two of his three convictions on ex post facto grounds. On remand, the Court of Military Commission Review, without remanding to the military commission, reaffirmed Al Bahlul's life sentence for the conspiracy conviction.The D.C. Circuit reversed and remanded. The CMCR failed to apply the correct harmless error standard, In reevaluating Al Bahlul’s sentence, the CMCR should have asked whether it was beyond a reasonable doubt that the military commission would have imposed the same sentence for conspiracy alone. The court rejected Al Bahlul’s remaining arguments. The appointment of the Convening Authority was lawful; there is no reason to unsettle Al Bahlul I’s ex post facto ruling, and the court lacked jurisdiction in an appeal from the CMCR to entertain challenges to the conditions of Al Bahlul’s ongoing confinement. View "Al Bahlul v. United States" on Justia Law

After appellant asked the Board to expunge or amend Army investigators' determinations recorded in his military files, the Board denied his application and the district court sustained its decision.The DC Circuit reversed, holding that a basic mistake of fact rendered the Board's decision arbitrary and capricious. In this case, the allegedly false statement was the expiration date of appellant's current military orders, which he wrote in a blank on the 2007-2008 school year registration form to re-enroll his three children at the Fort Buchanan base school. Army investigators opened a fraud investigation on the premise that appellant's assignment was for two years, rather than three. However, it is undisputed that the assignment was for three years and the investigation did not lead to any criminal prosecution or military discipline. View "Code v. McCarthy" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied petitions for writs of mandamus seeking vacatur of all orders issued by the former presiding military judge because of the appearance of partiality. Petitioners are being tried before a military tribunal for their alleged roles in the September 11th terrorist attacks.The court held that it was neither clear nor indisputable that the military judge should have recused himself. The court explained that the military judge's career and relationships do not constitute reasonable bases for the extraordinary remedy of mandamus. View "In re: Mustafa Al Hawsawi" on Justia Law