Justia U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Petitioner, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, appealed the denial of his petition under 28 U.S.C. 2241 challenging a magistrate judge's certification of extraditability. The magistrate judge found that petitioner was subject to extradition under a treaty between the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina based on war crimes he allegedly committed during the conflict in former Yugoslavia. The court applied the indefinite limitations period from the United States Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. 2340A, that was in place at the time of the extradition request and concluded that the request for petitioner's extradition is not time-barred under Article VII of the treaty. Further, the acts of torture allegedly perpetrated by petitioner against civilians preclude application of the political offense exception. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that petitioner's extradition is neither time-barred nor precluded by the political offense exception in the treaty. View "Nezirovic v. Holt" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a citizen of Taiwan, filed suit against the United States, seeking damages for the accidental killing of her husband and the intentional sinking of her husband's fishing vessel during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) counter-piracy mission. Plaintiff's husband was one of three Chinese hostages captured by pirates. Because allowing this action to proceed would thrust courts into the middle of a sensitive multinational counter-piracy operation and force courts to second-guess the conduct of military engagement, the court agreed that the separation of powers prevents the judicial branch from hearing the case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the action under the political question and discretionary function doctrines. View "Wu Tien Li-Shou v. United States" on Justia Law

A magistrate judge in the District of Columbia determined that petitioner, a Mexican citizen, was extraditable under the Extradition Treaty between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, U.S. - Mex., May 4, 1978, 31 U.S.T. 5059. Petitioner owned and operated pharmaceutical businesses in and around Mexico City that illegaly imported psychotropic substances into Mexico. On appeal, petitioner claimed that the magistrate judge lacked jurisdiction to conduct the extradition proceeding and that the Treaty bars his extradition. The court found no merit in petitioner's claim that the fact that he was moved from Maryland to the District of Columbia against his will precludes the D.C. Magistrate from exercising jurisdiction over him where, under the Ker-Frisbie doctrine, a defendant's involuntary presence in a court is not a bar to personal jurisdiction. Further, when construing other jurisdiction and venue statutes concerning foreign nationals that, like 18 U.S.C. 3184, require a defendant to be "found in" a place, the court has held that this "found in" requirement is satisfied even when the defendant is brought there against his will. The court rejected petitioner's argument that the Treaty's Non Bis In Idem provision in Article 6 bars his extradition where the court declined to follow Sindona v. Grant's "same conduct" framework, and adopted the Blockburger v. United States' "same elements" test as the proper mode of analysis. The court rejected petitioner's remaining claims regarding the Treaty's dual criminality provision in Article 2 and rule of specialty provision in Article 17. The court affirmed the denial of petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. View "Gon v. Holt" on Justia Law

A German court denied Father's petition under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, T.I.A.S. No. 11,670, 1343 U.N.T.S. 98, and a German appellate court affirmed. Consequently, Mother did not have to return the children to North Carolina. On a one-month visit to North Carolina, Father decided to keep the children. The district court accorded comity to the German appellate court's decision and granted Mother's Hague petition. The children were ordered to return to Germany. Father appealed. The court rejected Father's arguments on appeal and concluded that the district court properly extended comity because the German court's decision neither clearly misinterpreted the Hague Convention nor failed to meet a minimum standard of reasonableness. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Smedley v. Smedley" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, foreign nationals, alleged that they were tortured and otherwise mistreated by American civilian and military personnel while detained at Abu Ghraib. CACI, a corporation domiciled in the United States, contracted with the United States to provide private interrogators to interrogate detainees at Abu Ghraib. Plaintiffs alleged that CACI employees instigated, directed, participated in, encouraged, and aided and abetted conduct towards detainees that clearly violated federal and international law. The court concluded that the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. does not foreclose plaintiffs' claims under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. 1350, and that the district court erred in reaching a contrary conclusion. In light of Kiobel, the court held that plaintiffs' claims "touch and concern" the territory of the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute. Because the court was unable to determine whether the claims presented nonjusticiable political questions, the court did not reach the additional issue of the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' common law claims. The court vacated the district court's judgment with respect to all plaintiffs' claims and remanded. View "Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology, Inc." on Justia Law

The government appealed the district court's order which altered the terms of a bond the Coast Guard had fixed for the release of a detained ship that was under investigation and restricted the types of penalties the government could seek for the ship's potential violations of certain ocean pollution prevention statutes. The ship at issue, the Pappadakis, an ocean-going bulk cargo carrier carrying a shipment of coal to Brazil, was detained by the Coast Guard because the vessel had likely been discharging bilge water overboard. The court reversed and remanded for dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) where the matter was not subject to review in the district court because the Coast Guard's actions were committed to agency discretion by law. Consequently, the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider the petition. View "Angelex Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Sudan after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and the district court found Sudan liable under the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U.S.C. 30301 et seq. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's conclusion that the DOHSA action precluded their subsequent federal cause of action under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1605. The court concluded that the various provisions of section 1083 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (NDAA), Pub. L. No. 110-181, 122 Stat. 3, were inapplicable here and, therefore, the court declined to consider the constitutionality of NDAA section 1083; the district court did not abuse its discretion when, as part of a close look, considered sua sponte whether res judicata barred plaintiffs' claims; but the court concluded, however, that res judicata should not apply here. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Clodfelter v. Republic of Sudan" on Justia Law

Petitioner initiated this action for wrongful removal under the Hague Convention, seeking the return of his son to Switzerland. The district court found that respondent breached no rights of custody in removing the child and denied the petition for return. Respondent had sole custody of her son when she traveled with him to the United States and Swiss law gave her a unilateral right to remove the child while he was in her sole custody. Petitioner failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that respondent's removal of the child abused her rights under Swiss law or breached any rights of custody petitioner held at the time of removal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "White v. White" on Justia Law

Albert DiFederico, a former naval commander, was serving as a civilian contractor for the State Department in Pakistan when he was killed in a terrorist attack on the Marriott Islamabad Hotel. His widow and their three sons brought this wrongful death action and survivorship claim alleging that Marriott was liable for its failure to adequately secure its franchise hotel. The district court granted Marriott's motion to dismiss on the basis of forum non conveniens, finding that Pakistan was an available, adequate, and far more convenient forum to hear the case. Plaintiffs brought their suit in the forum of Marriott's principal place of business, the District of Maryland. The court found that plaintiffs were entitled to heightened deference in their choice of forum. The court concluded that it would be a perversion of justice to force a widow and her children to place themselves in the same risk-laden situation that led to the death of a family member. Plaintiffs were inconvenienced by the fear, emotional trauma, and associated logistical complexity that would afflict them if this case were dismissed and decided in Pakistan. The court's review of several of the applicable public and private factors provided additional support for the court's conclusion that the district court abused its discretion in dismissing the case. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "DiFederico v. Marriott Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, natives of Somalia and members of the Isaaq clan, alleged that they or members of their families were subject to torture, arbitrary detention, and extrajudicial killings by government agents under the command and control of defendant, a former high-ranking government official in Somalia. At issue was whether defendant was immune from suit under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 28 U.S.C. 1350, and the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. 1350. The court gave deference to the State Department's position on status-based immunity doctrines such as head-of-state immunity but, in contrast, the State Department's determination regarding conduct-based immunity was not controlling but carried substantial weight in the court's analysis. Because this case involved acts that violated jus cogens norms, the court concluded that defendant was not entitled to conduct-based official immunity under the common law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of both head-of-state and foreign official immunity to defendant. View "Yousuf v. Samantar" on Justia Law