Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05194/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05194-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

---

The attached material is cited in Meshal v. Higgenbotham,

No. 14-5194, slip op. at 18(D.C. Cir. October 23, 2015);

(citing , Steve Vladeck, Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for 

National Security Bivens Claims?, Just Security (June 17, 

2014), available on 2/17/16 at 

https://justsecurity.org/11784/meshal

Archived by the Circuit Library on 2/17/16.

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1599613 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 1 of 5
Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens Claims? | Just Security

https://www.justsecurity.org/11784/meshal/[02/17/2016 4:14:36 PM]

Archives: By Topic

Select a Topic

In the Pipeline

Coming up for

Friday, February 19

EVENT Women and Foreign Policy: Is Everything

We Know About Wartime Rape Wrong? Presented

by: U.S. Department of State Speakers: Fionnuala

Ní Aoláin, Executive Editor of Just Security, Robina

Chair in Law, Public Policy and Society at the

University of Minnesota Law School and Professor

of Law & Associate Director at Ulster University’s

Transitional Justice Institute (Belfast); and Dara

Kay Cohen, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at

the John F.... continue »

Coming up for

Tuesday, February 23

EVENT Iran in Context Presented by: Center on

National Security at Fordham Law Speakers: Laura

Secor, Freelance Writer and Author of Children of

Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran; and

Hooman Majd, Author of The Ayatollah Begs to

Differ Time & Location: 12:00pm; Fordham Law

School, New York, NY Details & Registration:

available here... continue »

Coming up for

Tuesday, February 23

EVENT Big Data: Gabriella Coleman Presented

by: Yale Law School Information Society Project

Speakers: Gabriella (Biella) Coleman, Wolfe Chair

in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill

University and Author of Hacker, Hoaxer,

Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of

Anonymous Time & Location: 12:00pm; Yale Law

School, New Haven, CT Details & Registration:

available here... continue »

Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens

Claims?

By Steve Vladeck

Tuesday, June 17, 2014 at 4:09 PM

Tweet

Last Friday, Judge Sullivan (D.D.C.) dismissed Meshal v. Higgenbotham, a longoutstanding Bivens suit brought by a U.S. citizen who alleged that, while travelling in the

Horn of Africa, he was detained for four months, interrogated, and tortured at the

direction of–and by–U.S. government officials (tellingly, the government did not claim

that the alleged conduct was constitutional). In a thoughtful 37-page opinion setting

forth his reasons for dismissing the case, Judge Sullivan offered a fairly candid (and, in

my view, accurate) explanation for why Meshal couldn’t recover for conduct that, if

proven, would unquestionably constitute “appalling (and, candidly,

embarrassing)” violations of his constitutional rights: In a nutshell, it’s the Fourth,

Seventh, and D.C. Circuits’ fault.

But whereas this ruling may seem like the last nail in a coffin long-since sealed for

Bivens-based damages for constitutional violations in national security cases, there’s one

small but potentially significant silver lining: As Judge Sullivan rightly explained, these

circuit-level decisions are not compelled by the Supreme Court’s own Bivens

jurisprudence–which, although hostile to Bivens, has repeatedly resisted invitations to

curtail it to the same degree as the lower courts. Instead, as I explain below, whereas

Judge Sullivan’s opinion concludes by suggesting that “Only Congress or the President

can provide a remedy to U.S. citizens under such circumstances,” I respectfully disagree.

The en banc D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court can do the same–that is, if either were

inclined to restore a modicum of coherence to Bivens. And if ever there was a case in

which such restoration seemed warranted, Meshal may well be it.

I. The Supreme Court’s Qualified Hostility to Bivens

It’s no secret that the Supreme Court, ever since 1980, has expressed increasing

skepticism of its 1971 decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal

Bureau of Narcotics, which held that, in appropriate cases, plaintiffs may seek damages

against federal officers for past violations of their constitutional rights, even if no statute

expressly provides a cause of action. Whether reflecting specific separation-of-powers

concerns or a more general judicial distaste for federal common lawmaking, the Court

Like

SIGN UP FOR

THE EARLY EDITION  About Us The Pipeline Alumni & Guest Authors Contact Us Write for Us   

MASTHEAD 

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1599613 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 2 of 5 JUST  SECURITY
Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens Claims? | Just Security

https://www.justsecurity.org/11784/meshal/[02/17/2016 4:14:36 PM]

Featured Posts

News Roundup and Notes: February 17, 2016

By Nadia O'Mara and Zoë Chapman

A Few Keystrokes Could Solve the Crime. Would

You Press Enter?

By Jonathan Zittrain

Why Aren’t Criminal Defendants Getting Notice of

Section 702 Surveillance — Again?

By Patrick C. Toomey

A Legal Map of Airstrikes in Syria (Part 2)

By Jonathan Horowitz

History, Hysteria, and Syrian Refugees

By Jaya Ramji-Nogales

Is the FBI Using Zero-Days in Criminal

Investigations?

By Ahmed Ghappour

has declined to recognize any new Bivens remedy since Carlson v. Green, and has

repeatedly expanded the scope of the two exceptions to Bivens that Justice Brennan

articulated in his 1971 majority opinion: (1) cases in which Congress has provided an

alternative to Bivens; or (2) cases presenting “special factors counseling hesitation.”

What’s more, at least two of the Justices–Justices Scalia and Thomas–appear to be of

the view that “Bivens is a relic of the heady days in which this Court assumed commonlaw powers to create causes of action.” (I’ve critiqued the flawed analogy at the heart of

this argument elsewhere.)

At the same time, the number of cases in which the Court has specifically declined to

recognize a Bivens claim since 1980 is fairly modest–it can be counted on two hands,

and nearly all of them fall into identifiable (if not defensible) categories, including (1)

cases in which statutes provided alternative means of redress; (2) cases brought by

servicemembers arising out of their military service; (3) suits against defendants other

than federal government officers (e.g., federal agencies, private corporations, or private

contractors); or (4) suits advancing novel constitutional claims. Over the same time

period, no Justices other than Scalia and Thomas have objected to the “core” of Bivens,

and a handful of decisions have reached other issues in Bivens cases without expressing

skepticism about the availability of a cause of action. In other words, there’s a case to be

made that the Supreme Court’s perceived hostility to Bivens is not nearly as

comprehensive and categorical as is widely portrayed, especially in suits at Bivens‘

“core”–suits against individual federal officers who were directly responsible

for violations of clearly established constitutional rights.

II. Meshal and the More Categorical Hostility of the Lower Courts

The lower courts, on the other hand, are a different story. As I explained in a pair of

articles (a 2010 essay for the Lewis and Clark Law Review and a 2012 article in

the American University Law Review), and as Judge Sullivan summarized in his

opinion in Meshal, a series of circuit-level decisions have gone much further, and have

refused to recognize Bivens claims in suits challenging alleged counterterrorism abuses

by relying on debatable (if not indefensible) invocations of the “special factors” exception

to Bivens–invocations with little or no relationship to those upon which the Supreme

Court has relied.

Thus, for example, courts have invoked merits-based considerations (e.g., whether

the defendants might have immunity; whether state secrets might bar further litigation;

etc.), or entirely undifferentiated concerns about judicial interference with national

security policies to refuse to recognize Bivens claims. Moreover, some of these very same

jurists have shown no similar reluctance to infer judge-made federal common law

principles to insulate contractor defendants from liability. As significantly, as Carlos

Vázquez and I documented last year in a University of Pennsylvania Law Review

article, these decisions have converted what used to be a choice between Bivens and

state tort law remedies into a choice between Bivens and “nothing,” and have ended up

holding that the appropriate answer is “nothing.”

At first, though, these decisions came almost entirely in suits brought by non-citizens,

usually based upon alleged constitutional violations outside the United States. Thus,

while decisions like the en banc Second Circuit’s ruling in Arar and the D.C. Circuit’s

holding in Rasul II were controversial, they could at least be distinguished as not

encompassing claims brought by U.S. citizens to vindicate clearly established

X HIDE THIS SIDEBAR

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1599613 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 3 of 5
Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens Claims? | Just Security

https://www.justsecurity.org/11784/meshal/[02/17/2016 4:14:36 PM]

constitutional rights. Indeed, as Judge Sullivan explained in Meshal, “when the

constitutional rights of American citizens are at stake, courts have not hesitated to

consider such issues on their merits even when the U.S. government is allegedly working

with foreign governments to deprive citizens of those rights.”

The problem, Judge Sullivan went on to note, is three subsequent circuit-court decisions:

The Fourth Circuit’s decision in Lebron v. Rumsfeld (the Jose Padilla case); the en banc

Seventh Circuit’s holding in Vance v. Rumsfeld, and the D.C. Circuit’s decision

in Doe v. Chertoff. In all three of these cases, the courts relied upon the “special factors”

prong to hold that no Bivens claim should be available to U.S. citizens challenging their

treatment at the hands of U.S. military captors, even though each of the citizens sought

to vindicate clearly established constitutional rights. Although these cases all involved

“battlefield” conduct (Padilla was an alleged “enemy combatant”; Vance and Doe were

U.S. military contractors working in combat zones), Judge Sullivan explained that they

all relied upon a more general conclusion equally applicable to Meshal’s claims:

“That the same special factors compelling hesitation in military cases also compel

hesitation in cases involving national security and intelligence. The cases hold that

implying a Bivens cause of action in any of these types of cases would intrude into the

affairs of the legislative and executive branches, in violation of the separation of powers.”

Although I have written at great length about the problems with each and all of these

decisions, it’s difficult to disagree with Judge Sullivan’s application of them to bar relief

in Meshal. Similarly, it’s difficult to disagree with his palpable frustration at such a

result:

When Bivens was decided over forty years ago, it was intended for cases in

which “[t]he mere invocation of federal power by a federal law enforcement

official will normally render futile any attempt to resist.... In such case, there

is no safety for the citizen, except in the protection of the judicial tribunals,

for rights which have been invaded by the officers of the government,

professing to act in its name.” Mr. Meshal has come to court seeking the

protection of judicial tribunals as the only way to provide for his safety.

Under Lebron, Doe, and Vance, however, when a citizen’s rights are violated

in the context of military affairs, national security, or intelligence gathering

Bivens is powerless to protect him. As one of the Vance dissenters predicted,

this evisceration of Bivens risks “creating a doctrine of constitutional triviality

where private actions are permitted only if they cannot possibly offend

anyone anywhere. That approach undermines our essential constitutional

protections in the circumstances when they are often most necessary.” In

issuing today’s opinion, the Court fears that this prediction is arguably

correct.

Simply put, Meshal is the logical culmination of these deeply problematic circuit-level

decisions: Even in a suit brought by a U.S. citizen plaintiff with no connection to the

military or to a foreign combat zone, a Bivens claim to enforce clearly established

constitutional rights is precluded by the government’s mere invocation of amorphous

“national security” concerns.

III. Why Meshal is the Right Case to Fix Bivens

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1599613 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 4 of 5
Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens Claims? | Just Security

https://www.justsecurity.org/11784/meshal/[02/17/2016 4:14:36 PM]

Of course, that these three circuit-level decisions (especially the D.C. Circuit’s decision

in Doe) compel the result in the district court in Meshal says nothing about whether the

en banc D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court would necessarily agree. (Nor does the Supreme

Court’s denial of certiorari in those cases.) And that’s the point of this post: It may well

be that the Supreme Court has no problem with the more aggressive hostility to Bivens

manifested in these lower court decisions–and is thereby comfortable with the complete

absence of civil liability in any suit seeking retrospective relief for constitutional

violations in the name of “national security” (and the functional impunity such a result

would produce for government officers). That is to say, it may be that these lower courts

are correctly interpreting implicit signals from the Justices in their even more

comprehensive opposition to Bivens. But consider the claims in Meshal, as recounted by

Judge Sullivan:

Count I alleges Defendants violated his Fifth Amendment right to substantive

due process by threatening him with disappearance and torture; by directing,

approving and participating in his detention in Kenya and his illegal

rendition to Somalia and Ethiopia without due process; and by subjecting

him to months of custodial interrogation in Africa. Count II alleges

Defendants violated Mr. Meshal’s Fifth Amendment right to procedural due

process by subjecting him to prolonged and arbitrary detention without

charge; denying him access to a court or other processes to challenge his

detention; and denying him access to counsel. Count III alleges Defendants

violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure

without a probable cause hearing. Count IV alleges Defendants violated his

rights under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA).

Short of a fact pattern that arose within the territorial United States (which shouldn’t

make a difference with respect to Meshal’s constitutional rights), it’s hard to envision a

clearer case for Bivens relief. And so, if a U.S. citizen who just happens to be in the

wrong place at the wrong time may not pursue any recovery based upon these terrifying

allegations of sustained mistreatment, then Bivens truly should be limited to its facts (or

overruled outright), and it’s high time for the Supreme Court to say so.

But I have to think that part of why the rest of the Justices have never taken up Justice

Scalia’s and Justice Thomas’s invitation to relegate Bivens to the historical dustbin is to

preserve the specter of relief–however fleeting in most circumstances–for egregious

cases just like this one. If not Meshal, then when?

Tags: Bivens Suit, Meshal v. Higgenbotham

Tweet

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Vladeck is co-editor-in-chief of Just Security. Steve is a professor of

Like

USCA Case #14-5194 Document #1599613 Filed: 10/23/2015 Page 5 of 5