Gul v. Obama

• Decision Date: 12 September 2011
• Docket Number: Nos. 10–5117,10–5118.,s. 10–5117
• Citation: 397 U.S.App.D.C. 280,652 F.3d 12
• Parties: Nazul GUL, Appellantv.Barack OBAMA, President of the United States of America, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

652 F.3d 12

397 U.S.App.D.C. 280

Nazul GUL, Appellant

v.Barack OBAMA, President of the United States of America, et al., Appellees.

Nos. 10–5117

10–5118.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 1, 2011.Decided July 22, 2011.Rehearing En Banc Denied Sept. 12, 2011.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Nos. 1:05–cv–00888, 1:05–cv–01009).Stephen R. Sady, Chief Deputy Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Steven T. Wax, Federal Public Defender, and Amy Baggio, Assistant Federal Public Defender.Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Robert M. Loeb and Benjamin S. Kingsley, Attorneys.Before: GINSBURG, TATEL and BROWN, Circuit Judges.Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:

The United States detained Nazul Gul and Adel Hamad for several years at the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. During that time, each filed with the district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Prior to any hearing on the merits of their petitions, however, the United States transferred the detainees to the custody of foreign sovereigns; it did not then rescind, nor has it since rescinded, their designation as “enemy combatants.”

In an effort to refute the allegations levied against them and to have that designation rescinded, Gul and Hamad want to continue litigating their habeas petitions. Because they are no longer held by the United States, however, the district court dismissed their petitions as moot and hence beyond the court's jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution of the United States. Gul and Hamad appeal, arguing among other things that their petitions are not moot because they continue to be burdened by the collateral consequences of their prior detention and continuing designation. Having determined the appellants identify no injury sufficient to bring their cases within the court's jurisdiction under Article III, we affirm the order of the district court.

I. Background

Pakistani forces arrested Hamad in Pakistan in 2002; American forces arrested Gul in Afghanistan in 2003. The United States transferred both men to the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

While detained, each filed in the district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking his immediate release. There being some doubt about its jurisdiction to hear those petitions, the district court stayed both cases pending resolution of the uncertainty by the Court of Appeals. See Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, Pub.L. No. 109–148, § 1005(e), 119 Stat. 2680, 2742–43 (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 801 note) (limiting scope of judicial relief available to detainees at Guantanamo Bay and vesting jurisdiction exclusively in D.C. Circuit); Military Commissions Act of 2006, Pub.L. No. 109–366, § 7, 120 Stat. 2600, 2635–36 (amending 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)) (stripping federal courts of jurisdiction to “consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination”).

In 2007, without substantive action having been taken in either case, the United States notified Gul and Hamad they had been “approved to leave Guantanamo.” The notice stated approval to leave “does not equate to a determination that [the detainee] is not an enemy combatant, nor is it a determination that he does not pose a threat to the United States.”

In accordance with the notice, Gul was transferred to Afghanistan in March 2007, after which the district court sua sponte dismissed his petition as moot. Gul promptly moved for reconsideration of the order of dismissal but his motion was not immediately resolved.

Hamad was transferred to Sudan in December 2007. The court took no further action on his petition until 2008, when the Supreme Court issued Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 128 S.Ct. 2229, 171 L.Ed.2d 41.

The district court then consolidated proceedings in all Guantanamo Bay cases and the presiding judge ordered all former detainees who had been transferred out of Guantanamo, but who still had habeas petitions pending, to submit a consolidated brief addressing the issue of mootness. On April 1, 2010, after briefing was complete, the district judge dismissed in a single order all cases captioned in the consolidated brief.^* See In re Petitioners Seeking Habeas Corpus Relief in Relation to Prior Detentions at Guantanamo Bay, 700 F.Supp.2d 119, 137.

II. Analysis

Gul and Hamad claim their petitions are not moot and the district court made certain procedural errors in reaching the contrary conclusion. Specifically, they argue the district court (1) misapplied the collateral consequences doctrine, (2) improperly shifted to them the burden of showing their cases present a live controversy, (3) failed adequately to consider the facts of their individual cases, and (4) failed to abide the provision of 28 U.S.C. § 2243 requiring courts to dispose of a habeas petition as “law and justice require.” We address de novo these issues of law, see Del Monte Fresh Produce Co. v. United States, 570 F.3d 316, 321 (D.C.Cir.2009) (question of mootness reviewed de novo), and affirm the order of the district court.

A. The Collateral Consequences Doctrine

In arguing for reversal, Gul and Hamad rely first and foremost upon the collateral consequences doctrine. The doctrine dates back at least to Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968), which the Supreme Court heard after a state prisoner, who had petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, had completed his term of incarceration and been discharged from parole, id. at 236, 88 S.Ct. 1556. The state argued the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the petition because the petitioner's release from custody and his subsequent completion of parole terminated any injury caused by his unlawful confinement; his case, that is, was moot. Id. at 236–37, 88 S.Ct. 1556. The Supreme Court observed that as a “consequence of his conviction, [the petitioner] cannot engage in certain businesses; he cannot serve as an official of a labor union for a specified period of time; he cannot vote in any election held in New York State; [and] he cannot serve as a juror.” Id. at 237, 88 S.Ct. 1556 (footnotes omitted). Because of these “disabilities or burdens,” the Court held the petitioner had “a substantial stake in the judgment of conviction which survives the satisfaction of the sentence imposed on him.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

A few weeks later the Supreme Court determined a former prisoner challenging his conviction should be presumed to present a justiciable case, for it is an “obvious fact of life that most criminal convictions do in fact entail adverse collateral legal consequences.” Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 55, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968). A government could rebut this presumption only if it could show there was “no possibility that any collateral legal consequences [would] be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction.” Id. at 57, 88 S.Ct. 1889.

Gul and Hamad argue a former detainee who remains designated an enemy combatant should likewise be presumed to have a justiciable case. They deem it “obvious” the consequences facing such an individual are tantamount to those facing a person convicted of a crime and, therefore, they disclaim any obligation to identify a specific collateral consequence they face before the district court proceeds with the merits of their claims.

Alternatively, Gul and Hamad argue they have shown they continue to experience concrete adverse consequences from their prior detention. As a result of being designated enemy combatants, they argue: (i) the governments of Afghanistan and Sudan, respectively, have imposed travel restrictions upon them; (ii) they are prohibited from entering the United States; (iii) they are subject under the Laws of War to the possibility of re-arrest, capture, detention, and extrajudicial killing by the United States; and (iv) their reputations have been damaged.

The Government responds by noting it is not yet established whether the collateral consequences doctrine applies to a habeas petition filed by a former detainee. It contends the doctrine is not applicable, and a detainee who is no longer in U.S. custody should be foreclosed from arguing his petition is not moot, because habeas is at its “core” about remedying unlawful detention. The Government offers two arguments to support this position. First, the Government argues the collateral consequences doctrine derives from 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and is therefore not available to a detainee who is, it says, entitled only to those habeas rights protected by the Suspension Clause of the Constitution.^* Second, citing Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 128 S.Ct. 2207, 171 L.Ed.2d 1 (2008), the Government points out equitable considerations, particularly principles of comity with foreign sovereigns, may in some circumstances provide legitimate reason to restrict the availability of the writ to current detainees and, by parity of reasoning, to former detainees as well.

Even if a former detainee's habeas petition may present a live controversy, the Government maintains, the present appellants' petitions must be dismissed: First, it says, a former detainee should not be presumed to face collateral consequences because the types of “disabilities and burdens” identified in Carafas and its sequelae do not attend “detainees held under the laws of war.” Second, the Government argues none of the particular consequences by which Gul and Hamad claim to be burdened is sufficient to meet the injury component of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.

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