Justia International Law Opinion Summaries

Eight years after Belgium extradited defendant, a Tunisian national, to stand trial in the United States on terrorism charges, the trial has yet to take place. In this appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motions to reconsider dismissing the indictment in light of intervening, and conflicting, Belgian legal developments.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment, concluding that the Belgian legal developments defendant invokes do not constitute significant new evidence that would warrant disturbing this court's 2017 decision affirming the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment. The court stated that defendant has selectively picked and chosen phrases from these documents to argue that this court must defer to the Belgian courts' interpretation of Article 5 and revisit its decision in Trabelsi II. However, the court concluded that none of the intervening decisions, communications, or pleadings present significant new evidence or detract from the deference this court owes to the Belgian state. Therefore, defendant has failed to meet the significantly high burden for departing from the law of the case. View "United States v. Trabelsi" on Justia Law

Defendant, a citizen and resident of France charged with violating the Commodity Exchange Act, appealed the district court's memorandum order applying the fugitive disentitlement doctrine and denying her motions to dismiss the indictment on grounds of extraterritoriality and due process.After determining that it has jurisdiction to review the order disentitling defendant, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings to consider or reconsider the merits of her motions to dismiss. The court agreed with defendant that it has jurisdiction to review the fugitive disentitlement ruling pursuant to the collateral order doctrine. The court held that defendant is not a fugitive, and that, even if she were, the district court abused its discretion in concluding that disentitlement was justified. The court explained that fugitivity implies some action by defendant to distance herself from the United States or frustrate arrest, but she took no such action. The court concluded, however, that it lacked jurisdiction to review the merits of the extraterritoriality and due process challenges and dismissed the appeal to that extent. View "United States v. Sindzingre" on Justia Law

Vastardis, a citizen of Greece and Chief Engineer onboard the Liberian-registered petroleum tanker, Evridiki, was convicted of offenses related to maritime pollution: failing to maintain an accurate Oil Record Book for several weeks, 33 U.S.C. 1908(a); falsifying high-seas Oil Record Book entries, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 18 U.S.C. 1519; obstructing justice in the Coast Guard’s investigation of the Evridiki, 18 U.S.C. 1505; and making false statements, 18 U.S.C. 1001. The district court imposed a $7,500 fine, a $400 special assessment, and three years’ probation. Vastardis was barred from entering or applying for visas to enter the U.S.The Third Circuit affirmed the convictions but vacated the portion of the sentence that precludes Vastardis from entering the U.S. while under court supervision. The deception at issue involved falsely documenting bilge water discharges that occurred when the Evridiki was on the high seas and were only discovered when the Evridiki was docked in the Delaware Bay port. Vastardis cannot be convicted in a U.S. court for crimes occurring in international waters, but the convictions here were based on the presence of inaccurate records in U.S. waters, so the district court had subject matter jurisdiction even though the actual entries may have been made beyond U.S. jurisdiction while on the high seas. View "United States v. Vastardis" on Justia Law

Halkbank, a commercial bank that is majority-owned by the Government of Turkey, was charged with crimes related to its participation in a multi-year scheme to launder billions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds in violation of U.S. sanctions against the Government of Iran and Iranian entities and persons. Halkbank moved to dismiss the indictment but the district court denied the motionThe Second Circuit held that it has jurisdiction over the instant appeal under the collateral order doctrine. The court also held that, even assuming the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) applies in criminal cases—an issue that the court need not, and did not, decide today—the commercial activity exception to FSIA would nevertheless apply to Halkbank's charged offense conduct. Therefore, the district court did not err in denying Halkbank’s motion to dismiss the Indictment. The court further concluded that Halkbank, an instrumentality of a foreign sovereign, is not entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution at common law. View "United States v. Bankasi" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for international parental kidnapping and passport fraud. After determining that defendant's vagueness challenge fails insofar as it is premised on deficient notice, the court held that the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act (IPKCA) is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to him. In this case, the IPKCA is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to someone who retains children abroad without first abducting them, when the children had not been in the United States for several years prior to the unlawful retention.The court also held that the district court properly applied two Sentencing Guidelines enhancements for substantial interference with the administration of justice and for fraudulent use of a United States passport. View "United States v. Houtar" on Justia Law

Jabateh was a rebel commander during the Liberian civil war. He later fled to the United States seeking asylum. His conduct in Liberia, characterized by brazen violence and wanton atrocities, made honest immigration application impossible. He concealed his crimes and portrayed himself as a persecuted victim. Jabateh’s fraud succeeded for almost 20 years.In 2016, Jabateh was charged with the fraud in his immigration documents, 18 U.S.C. 1546(a) and perjury, 18 U.S.C. 1621. The five-year limitations period for misconduct related to Jabateh's 2001 application for permanent residency had passed, leaving only Jabateh’s oral responses in a 2011 Interview affirming his answer of “no” to questions related to genocide and misrepresentations during his immigration applications. The district court noted “the force of the prosecution’s trial evidence,” establishing that Jabateh personally committed or ordered his troops to commit murder, enslavement, rape, and torture “because of race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin or political opinion.”The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and to Jabateh’s 360-month sentence. The court acknowledged that section 1546(a) criminalizes fraud in immigration documents and that Jabateh was not charged with fraud in his immigration documents, only with orally lying about those documents. Jabateh, however, failed to raise this argument at trial. “Given the novelty of the interpretative question, and the lack of persuasive" guidance, the court declined to hold that this reading of section 1546(a) meets the stringent standards for “plain error” reversal. View "United States v. Jabateh" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a certificate of appealability (COA) allowing petitioner to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. Petitioner's motion asserted that a report issued on August 12, 2020, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which concluded that petitioner's trial and sentence violated his rights under the American Declaration, requires that his death sentence be vacated, that he must be released or given a new trial, and that he cannot be sentenced to death after a new trial.The panel held that reasonable jurists would not find debatable the district court's conclusion that the IACHR's decision is not binding in federal court. In this case, the district court concluded that IACHR rulings do not have binding power within the United States by virtue of the Organization of American States (OAS) Charter because the OAS Charter is not self-executing, and Congress has passed no statute to implement it. Furthermore, the district court rejected petitioner's argument that IACHR decisions are binding because they are derived, through the OAS Charter, from the American Declaration on the ground that the American Declaration is not a treaty and creates no binding set of obligations. View "Mitchell v. United States" on Justia Law

The City of Almaty, in Kazakhstan, filed suit against defendant and his family under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging that they engaged in a scheme to defraud the city of millions of dollars. The City claimed that it was forced to spend money and resources in the United States to trace where its money was laundered. The district court dismissed the City's claim on the basis that it failed to state a domestic injury pursuant to the Supreme Court's recent decision in RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 136 S. Ct. 2090 (2016).The Ninth Circuit held that the City failed to state any cognizable injury other than the foreign theft of its funds, and its voluntary expenditures were not proximately caused by defendants' acts of money laundering. In this case, the City's expenditure of funds to trace its allegedly stolen funds is a consequential damage of the initial theft suffered in Kazakhstan and is not causally connected to the predicate act of money laundering. View "City of Almaty v. Khrapunov" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit held that the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act (PROTECT Act) was constitutional as applied to defendant, who was indicted for producing child pornography and sexually abusing a child while residing in Vietnam in 2015. The court reversed the district court's dismissal of the indictment and held that each of the provisions of the Act that defendant challenged was rationally related to implementing the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.The court held that the provisions of the PROTECT Act that criminalize child sexual abuse and production of child pornography by U.S. citizens living abroad help to fulfill the United States' responsibility under the Optional Protocol to criminalize, "as a minimum," child prostitution and child pornography production by U.S. nationals wherever that conduct occurs. Furthermore, the Foreign Commerce Clause supports application of U.S. law to economic activity abroad that could otherwise impair the effectiveness of a comprehensive regulatory regime to eliminate the sexual exploitation of children. View "United States v. Park" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for engaging in a monetary transaction of over $10,000 derived from a specified unlawful activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956. In this case, defendant, a citizen of South Korea employed at a government-funded research institute, solicited and received payments from two seismometer manufacturers in exchange for ensuring that the research institute purchased their products, and gave the companies inside information about their competitors.The panel held that "bribery of a public official" in section 1956 is defined by that phrase's ordinary, contemporary, common meaning and is not constrained by 18 U.S.C. 201, a statute to which section 1956 makes no reference. Because the panel found the crime described in Article 129 of the South Korean Criminal Code fits comfortably within the ordinary meaning of "bribery of a public official" as used in section 1956, the panel held that the indictment was sufficient and that there was no instructional error. View "United States v. Heon-Cheol Chi" on Justia Law