Justia International Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. He asked the DC Circuit to vacate his convictions for war crimes—including providing material support to terrorism and murder of a United States soldier in violation of the law of war—based on the alleged constitutional and statutory infirmities of those convictions.   The DC Circuit dismissed the petition because Petitioner waived his right to appellate review by the DC Circuit. The court explained that a defendant cannot challenge a plea based on an alleged error of law that was raised, rejected and then waived pursuant to the plea. Here, Petitioner, aware that the military judge had rejected his theories, nonetheless chose to plead guilty and expressly waive his right to appeal those erroneous (in his view) rulings. He cannot now have the merits of his waived claims reviewed on appeal by arguing his waiver was invalid because those claims were wrongly decided. Indeed, the basic principle behind an appeal waiver is that the defendant gives up his right to have an appellate court review the merits of his arguments in exchange for valuable consideration. View "Omar Khadr v. United States" on Justia Law

Appellant challenged the basis of his detention at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Detained in 2004, Mr. al-Hela filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2005 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 2241. The district court denied Appellant’s petition. On appeal, he argued that the length of his detention without trial violated the Due Process Clause. He also argued that the District Court’s procedural decisions and evidentiary rulings deprived him of his right under the Suspension Clause to meaningful review of, and a meaningful opportunity to challenge, the basis for his detention, as well as his rights under the Due Process Clause.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court explained that it rejects Appellant’s claim that his procedural due process rights were violated. The court held that it need not decide whether due process protections apply to Guantanamo detainees because even assuming the Due Process Clause applies, the court found that the procedures employed by the district court to adjudicate Appellant’s habeas petition satisfy procedural due process. The court further rejected Appellant’s claims that his detention violates substantive due process because there is insufficient evidence that he was an enemy combatant or solely because of the lengthy duration of the military conflict. The court concluded that even assuming the Due Process Clause applies to Appellant, these claims fail on the merits. The court remanded as to Appellant’s claim that his continued detention violates substantive due process because he no longer poses a significant threat to the United States. View "Abdulsalam Ali Al-Hela v. Joseph Biden (REISSUED)" on Justia Law

Appellant, a United States citizen and veteran, alleges Appellees (Foreign Officials) detained and tortured him in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Appellant argued that the Foreign Officials did so to extract a false confession that he was an American mercenary. That is enough, in Appellant’s view, to establish that the district court had personal jurisdiction over the Foreign Officials. If not, he asserts alternatively that jurisdictional discovery is warranted.   The DC Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of the Foreign Officials’ motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and its denial of Appellant’s request for jurisdictional discovery. The court explained traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice do not save Appellant’s complaint. The court held Appellant failed to demonstrate that exercising specific jurisdiction over the Foreign Officials, in this case, would meet the requirements of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. And he also failed to describe particular ways in which jurisdictional discovery would cure his complaint’s defect. View "Darryl Lewis v. Kalev Mutond" on Justia Law

This is an international child custody dispute between Respondent and Petitioner over their minor children. While the family was residing in Germany, Respondent took the children to the United States and refused to return them. The Hague Convention generally requires children to be returned to the state of habitual residence so that the country’s courts may adjudicate the merits of any custody disputes. The Ninth Circuit previously vacated and remanded the district court’s first order to return the children to Germany. Because the Supreme Court issued its decision in Golan while the court was considering Respondent’s appeal of the second return order, the court also remanded that order for the district court’s reconsideration. The district court then granted the petition a third time.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting, on a second remand, Petitioner’s petition against Respondent for the return, pursuant to the Hague Convention, of the parties’ two children to Germany. Agreeing with other circuits, the panel held that, in cases governed by the Hague Convention, the district court has discretion as to whether to conduct an evidentiary hearing following remand and must exercise that discretion consistent with the Convention. The panel held that, on the second remand, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to hold a third evidentiary hearing when the factual record was fully developed. The panel held that, in making determinations about German procedural issues, the district court neither abused its discretion nor violated Respondent’s due process rights by communicating with the State Department and, through it, the German Central Authority View "BOGDAN RADU V. PERSEPHONE JOHNSON SHON" on Justia Law

According to the indictment, Defendant, a citizen of Switzerland and a partner in a Swiss wealth-management firm, and co-Defendant, a citizen of Portugal and Switzerland and an employee of a different Swiss wealth-management firm (together, “Defendants”), engaged in an international bribery scheme wherein U.S.-based businesses paid bribes to Venezuelan officials for priority payment of invoices and other favorable treatment from Venezuela’s state-owned energy company. A grand jury returned a nineteen-count indictment charging Defendants with various offenses stemming from their alleged international bribery scheme. The district court granted Defendants’ motions to dismiss.   The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded. The court held that the district court’s grant of Defendants’ motions to dismiss was improper because the indictment adequately conforms to minimal constitutional standards. Further, the indictment did not violate co-Defendant’s due process rights. Moreover, the court wrote the district court’s conclusion that Section 3292 failed to toll the statute of limitations is erroneous. The court explained that the totality of the circumstances indicates that a reasonable person in co-Defendant’s position would not have equated the restraint on his freedom of movement with formal arrest. View "USA v. Murta" on Justia Law

This appeal concerns an alleged international bribery scheme between U.S.-based businesses and Venezuelan officials. On Defendants’ motions, the district court dismissed all counts charged against them and suppressed statements made during an interview. The government timely appealed.   The Fifth Circuit reversed. First, the court held that because extraterritoriality concerns the merits of the case, not the court’s power to hear it, the district court erred in concluding that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over these counts. Further, Defendants’ contention that the indictment does not sufficiently allege that they are agents of a domestic concern does not lend itself to the conclusion that the indictment is inherently insufficient. Moreover, the term “agent” is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Defendants. Additionally, the court wrote that the allegations that Defendants engaged in conduct that occurred in part in the Southern District of Texas satisfy the money-laundering statute’s extraterritorial provision. The district court erred in concluding otherwise. Finally, the environment in which the agents questioned Defendant, wherein his attorney could safeguard against police coercion, does not present the same inherently coercive pressures as the station-house questioning at issue in Miranda. The district court’s order suppressing the statements, then, was erroneous. View "USA v. Murta" on Justia Law

Following proceedings in district court, the trial court t entered a final judgment, finding Defendant liable, ordering him to disgorge over $4,000,000 in funds, and placing two of his entities under receivership in order to sell and reorganize assets to repay investors. Later, a federal grand jury sitting in Miami returned a superseding indictment that described consistent with the district court’s findings of fact.   After an extradition request was filed by the United States, the Supreme Court of Brazil allowed him to be extradited. He returned to the United States, and on the eve of trial, following over a year of pretrial proceedings, Defendant entered into a plea agreement, agreeing to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud. The district court later sentenced Defendant to 220 months’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay $169,177,338 in restitution.   On appeal, Defendant broadly argues: (1) that the custodial sentence imposed and the order of restitution violate the extradition treaty; and (2) that his guilty plea was not made freely and voluntarily. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the district court fully satisfied the core concerns of Rule 11, and the court could discern no reason to conclude that the district court plainly erred in finding that Defendant’s guilty plea was entered knowingly and voluntarily. The court explained that in this case, the record fully reflects that Defendant agreed to be sentenced subject to a 20-year maximum term, and his 220-month sentence is near the low end of his agreed-upon 210-to-240-month range. View "USA v. John J. Utsick" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed an action against the International Criminal Police Organization (“Interpol”), charging negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of his right to due process of law under the New York State Constitution after Interpol refused to delete a so-called “red notice” identifying Plaintiff as a convicted criminal in the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”).   The district court granted Interpol’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that Interpol is a protected organization under the International Organizations Immunities Act (“IOIA”), 22 U.S.C. Sections 288-288l, and thus enjoys the same immunity from suit normally enjoyed by foreign sovereigns.   The Second Circuit affirmed concluding that the term “public international organizations” as used in 22 U.S.C. Section 288 includes any international organization that is composed of governments as its members, regardless of whether it has been formed by international treaty. Further, the court found that Interpol qualifies as a “public international organization” for the purposes of 22 U.S.C. Section 288 because its members are official government actors whose involvement is subject to control by participating nations. Next, the Headquarters Agreement between Interpol and the Government of France does not constitute an immunity waiver that would permit the present suit in a United States district court. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery prior to dismissal. View "El Omari v. The International Criminal Police Organization" on Justia Law

In 2012, Rife moved from Kentucky to Cambodia, took a position as an elementary school teacher, began a relationship with a Cambodian woman, and adopted a young Cambodian girl. For six years, Rife lived and worked exclusively in Cambodia, obtaining annual “Extension of Stay” temporary visas through his U.S. passport. Rife did not visit the U.S. during that period but maintained a bank account and property in Kentucky. In 2018, Cambodian authorities investigated allegations that Rife had sexually assaulted his young female students. Rife’s school terminated his employment. He returned to Kentucky, where federal agents interviewed him. Rife eventually confessed to abusing two female students.Rife was charged with two counts of illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, 18 U.S.C. 2423(c). The government did not allege that Rife offered anything of value in connection with his abuse of the girls; his “illicit sexual conduct” was non-commercial in nature. Rife argued that Congress lacked constitutional authority to punish him for non-commercial acts of sexual abuse that occurred in a foreign country years after he had traveled there. The district court denied Rife’s motion to dismiss, passing over the foreign commerce issue but upholding section 2423(c) as a valid exercise of Congress’s power to implement the Optional Protocol. The court sentenced Rife to 252 months’ imprisonment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, citing Supreme Court precedent; section 2423(c) as applied here was within Congress’s power to enact legislation implementing treaties. View "United States v. Rife" on Justia Law

Ali sought to pursue 42 U.S.C. 1983 proceedings challenging as unconstitutional an executive order of Maryland’s Governor that prohibits boycotts of Israel by business entities that bid on the state’s procurement contracts. According to the Initial Complaint, “Ali is a computer software engineer who wishes to submit bids for government software project contracts but is barred from doing so due to the presence of mandatory ‘No Boycott of Israel’ clauses.”The district court dismissed with prejudice Ali’s lawsuit for want of Article III standing to sue. The Fourth Circuit affirmed but modified the judgment to provide that the dismissal is without prejudice. The court first disagreed with Ali’s interpretation of the Order. The Order indicates that if a business entity has engaged in anti-Israel national origin discrimination in the process of preparing a bid for a state procurement contract, the entity is barred from being awarded the contract; if the entity has engaged in a boycott of Israel entirely unrelated to the bid formation process, the Order is of no relevance. The court rejected Ali’s argument that the certification requirement constitutes an unconstitutionally vague loyalty oath. The Order does not require the entity to pledge any loyalty to Israel or profess any other beliefs. View "Ali v. Hogan" on Justia Law