Georgacarakos v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation, Civil Action No. 11-1655 (JDB)

• Decision Date: 12 December 2012
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 11-1655 (JDB)
• Parties: PETER GEORGACARAKOS, Plaintiff, v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

PETER GEORGACARAKOS, Plaintiff,

v.FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 11-1655 (JDB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

DATE: December 12, 2012

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the Court on defendants' motion for summary judgment. For the reasons discussed below, the motion will be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

In November 1996, while incarcerated at the Lewisburg United States Penitentiary, plaintiff stabbed and killed another inmate, Randall Scott Anderson. See United States v. Georgacarakos, 138 F. App'x 407, 408 (3d Cir. 2005). A jury convicted plaintiff of second degree murder, and the court has imposed a 30-year prison sentence. Compl. at 1.¹ According to plaintiff, "at worst [he is] guilty of manslaughter," id., and reports of the investigation collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") allegedly "contain exculpatory evidence previously withheld" from him, id. at 2.

Plaintiff submitted a request to the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), see 5 U.S.C. § 552, for "copies of all 302's related to the investigation in the death of Randall Anderson, for which [plaintiff] was prosecuted." Defs.' Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of their Mot. for Summ. J. ("Defs.' Mem."), Decl. of David M. Hardy ("Hardy Decl."), Ex. A (Letter from plaintiff to FBI dated March 18, 2010).² The FBI assigned the request a tracking number (FOIPA No. 1145866-000) and acknowledged its receipt in writing. Hardy Decl., Ex. B (Letter from David M. Hardy, Section Chief, Record/Information Dissemination Section, Records Management Division, FBI, to plaintiff dated April 6, 2010). The FBI's search yielded 256 pages of responsive records, of which 237 pages were released in full or in part, and 19 pages were withheld in full. Id., Ex. C (Letter from D.M. Hardy to plaintiff dated January 14, 2011). Plaintiff pursued an administrative appeal to the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy ("OIP"), id., Ex. F (Letter from plaintiff to OIP dated February 9, 2011), and met with partial success in the form of a remand with respect to the 19 pages of records withheld in full, id., Ex. H (Letter from Janice Galli McLeod, Associate Director, OIP, to plaintiff dated July 29, 2011) at 1, resulting in the partial disclosure of these pages, id., Ex. I (Letter from D.M. Hardy to plaintiff dated November 14, 2011). The FBI's determination was affirmed in all other respects. See id., Ex. H at 1.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Summary Judgment in a FOIA Case

"FOIA cases typically and appropriately are decided on motions for summary judgment." Defenders of Wildlife v. U.S. Border Patrol, 623 F. Supp. 2d 83, 87 (D.D.C. 2009). The Court grants summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any materialfact and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In a FOIA action to compel production of records, the agency "is entitled to summary judgment if no material facts are in dispute and if it demonstrates 'that each document that falls within the class requested either has been produced . . . or is wholly exempt from the [FOIA's] inspection requirements.'" Students Against Genocide v. Dep't of State, 257 F.3d 828, 833 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (quoting Goland v. Cent. Intelligence Agency, 607 F.2d 339, 352 (D.C. Cir. 1978)). Summary judgment may be based solely on information provided in an agency's supporting affidavits or declarations if they are relatively detailed and when they describe "the documents and the justifications for nondisclosure with reasonably specific detail, demonstrate that the information withheld logically falls within the claimed exemption, and are not controverted by either contrary evidence in the record [or] by evidence of agency bad faith." Military Audit Project v. Casey, 656 F.2d 724, 738 (D.C. Cir. 1981); see Beltranena v. Clinton, 770 F. Supp. 2d 175, 182 (D.D.C. 2011).

B. The FBI's Search for Responsive Records

"The adequacy of an agency's search is measured by a standard of reasonableness and is dependent upon the circumstances of the case." Weisberg v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 705 F.2d 1344, 1351 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). An agency must "demonstrate beyond material doubt that its search was 'reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.'" Valencia-Lucena v. U.S. Coast Guard, 180 F.3d 321, 325 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (quoting Truitt v. Dep't of State, 897 F.2d 540, 542 (D.C. Cir. 1990)). The agency may submit affidavits or declarations that explain in reasonable detail the scope and method of the agency's search. Perry v. Block, 684 F.2d 121, 126 (D.C. Cir. 1982). "[T]he issue to be resolved is not whether there might exist any other documents possibly responsive to the request,but rather whether the search for those documents was adequate." Weisberg, 705 F.2d at 1351 (citing Perry, 684 F.2d at 128).

The FBI's Central Records System ("CRS") maintains "administrative, applicant, criminal, personnel, and other files compiled for law enforcement purposes." Hardy Decl. ¶ 16. Its "numerical sequence of files [is] broken down according to subject matter," and the subject matter "may relate to an individual, organization, company, publication, activity, or foreign intelligence matter (or program)." Id. "Access to the CRS is obtained through the General Indices, which are arranged in alphabetical order." Id. ¶ 17. "The General Indices consist of index cards on various subject matters that are searched either manually or through the automatic indices." Id. Entries in the General Indices are either "main" or "reference" entries. Id. A "'main' entry . . . carries the name corresponding [to] a subject of a file contained in the CRS," id. ¶ 17(a), and a reference entry (or cross-reference) "is generally only a mere mention . . . of an individual, organization, or other subject matter, contained in a document located in another 'main' file on a different subject matter," id. ¶ 17(b).

In order to search the CRS, one uses the Automated Case Support System ("ACS"), implemented in 1995 to "facilitate[] more . . . expeditious access to records maintained in the CRS." Id. ¶ 19. There are "three integrated, yet separately functional, automatic applications" within the ACS: Investigative Case Management (ICM), Electronic Case File (ECF), and Universal Index (UNI). Id. ¶ 20. ICM allows for the opening, assignment, and closing of investigative cases, and for setting, assigning, and tracking leads. Id. ¶ 20(a). Each new case is assigned a Universal Case File Number which includes a three-digit number representing the type of investigation, a two-letter code representing the office of origin, and a five-digit number for the particular investigation. Id. ECF is "the central electronic repository for the FBI'sofficial text-based documents." Id. ¶ 20(b). UNI "provid[es] a complete subject/case index to all investigative and administrative cases." Id. ¶ 20(c). "Names of individuals or organizations are recorded with identifying . . . information such as date or place of birth, race, sex, locality, Social Security number, address, and/or date of event" also recorded. Id. Generally, the Special Agent to whom an investigation is assigned decides whether to index an individual's name; only "information considered to be pertinent, relevant, or essential for future retrieval" is indexed. Id. ¶ 21. Without an index, "information essential to ongoing investigations could not be readily retrieved," and, therefore, "the General Indices to the CRS files are the means by which the FBI . . . determine[s] what retrievable information, if any, [it has] in its CRS files on a particular subject matter or individual, i.e. Peter N. Georgacarakos." Id.

"The FBI conducted a search of the CRS for records responsive to plaintiff's request by running searches using ACS." Id. ¶ 22. Using variations of plaintiff's name as search terms, the search yielded "one responsive main file, 90A-PH-80620, which pertains to the investigation of the Anderson murder." Id. Because plaintiff "sought access to 'all 302s' relating to the murder investigation," FBI staff "identified and processed all 302s in the case file." Id.

On review of the motion and supporting declaration, and absent any challenge by plaintiff to the agency's search, the Court concludes that the FBI's search for records responsive to plaintiff's request for "FD-302s" pertaining to the Anderson murder investigation was reasonable under the circumstances.

C. Exemption Claims

1. Exemption 3

Exemption 3 covers records that are "specifically exempted from disclosure by statute . . . provided that such statute either "(A) [requires withholding] in such a manner as to leave no discretion on the issue," or "(B) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers toparticular types of matters to be withheld." 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(3); see also Senate of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 823 F.2d 574, 582 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Rule 6 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which is considered a statute for purposes of Exemption 3 because Congress affirmatively enacted it, see Fund for Constitutional Gov't v. Nat'l Archives & Records Serv., 656 F.2d 856, 867-68 (D.C. Cir. 1981), prohibits disclosure of "matters occurring before [a] grand jury." Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(2); see In re Motions of Dow Jones & Co., Inc., 142 F.3d 496, 498-501 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Dow Jones & Co., Inc. v. Clinton, 525 U.S. 820 (1998).

Under Exemption 3, the FBI withholds "details concerning a Federal Grand Jury subpoena, including the name and identifying information of an individual subject to a . . . subpoena and information that identifies specific records or evidence subpoenaed by the Federal Grand Jury." Hardy Decl. ¶ 29. Here, the declarant explains that disclosure of these materials "would clearly reveal the subject of the investigation as well as a...