Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-03006/USCOURTS-caDC-00-03006-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mohammed Rashed
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 13, 2000 Decided December 19, 2000

No. 00-3006

United States of America,

Appellee

v.

Mohammed Rashed, a/k/a Rashid Mohammed,

Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 87cr00308-02)

Robert L. Tucker, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was A.

J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender.

John F. De Pue, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were

Scott J. Glick and Susan A. Sinclair, Attorneys, and Wilma

A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney.

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Before: Williams, Randolph and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Williams.

Williams, Circuit Judge: Mohamed Rashed moved the

district court to dismiss six of the nine counts of an indictment charging him with terrorism. He claimed that under

the Double Jeopardy Clause his prior prosecution in Greece

for related offenses foreclosed a prosecution in the United

States. Rashed recognized that the dual sovereignty doctrine

normally renders the double jeopardy bar inapplicable in

cases of prosecutions by different sovereigns. But he invoked

an exception overriding the dual sovereignty doctrine when

one sovereign's prosecution is a "sham" for prosecution by the

other. See Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 123-24 (1959).

The district court denied the motion. United States v.

Rashed, 83 F. Supp. 2d 96 (D.D.C. 1999).

We affirm. In no reasonable sense of the word was

Greece's prosecution of Rashed a sham. Far from being

controlled by the United States, the Greek trial occurred only

because Greece rejected U.S. demands for Rashed's extradition, yet was subject to the requirement of Article 7 of the

Montreal Convention to prosecute Rashed itself if it failed to

extradite him. Convention on Suppression of Unlawful Acts

Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, Sept. 23, 1971, arts. 7-8,

24 U.S.T. 565, 571 ("Montreal Convention").

* * *

Rashed is charged with participating in various bombing

enterprises around the world in violation of U.S. law. The

charges include placing a bomb on an August 11, 1982, Pan

Am flight from Tokyo to Honolulu, killing one and wounding

15 passengers. Rashed is also charged with conspiring in the

same month to place a bomb on a Pan Am aircraft in Rio de

Janeiro, a bomb that luckily was discovered and removed

safely. The counts of the indictment at issue here, 1 and 3-7,

all relate to the bomb on the Tokyo-Honolulu flight.

At the request of the United States, Greek authorities

detained an individual bearing a passport in the name of

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Mohammed Hamdan on May 30, 1988. The individual was in

fact Rashed, who here asserts--at the expense of his notion

that Greece is a U.S. pawn--that the United States did not

tell Greece of Hamdan's true identity for fear that otherwise

Greece wouldn't have apprehended him. After verifying

Rashed's capture, the United States requested his extradition

under its bilateral extradition treaty with Greece. Treaty of

Extradition between the United States and the Hellenic

Republic, May 6, 1931, 47 Stat. 2185, as further interpreted

by the Protocol, Sept. 2, 1937, 51 Stat. 357. In May 1989 the

Greek Supreme Court ruled that Rashed could be extradited

on some but not all counts of the U.S. indictment. Decision

820/1989, Greek Supreme Court, Sixth Penal Section (May 12,

1989). But the Greek government delayed handing Rashed

over to the United States and officially rejected the United

States's extradition request in September 1990. Instead

Greece chose to pursue Article 7's alternative course, that of

prosecuting Rashed itself. Montreal Convention, art. 7, 24

U.S.T. at 571.

A Greek court found Rashed guilty of intentional homicide

and placement of explosive devices in an aircraft, but acquitted him of charges of illegal seizure of an aircraft and

instigation of damage to aircraft. Although sentenced to 15

years in prison, he was released on December 5, 1996, after

serving eight and a half years. In the course of his travels

away from Greece he was taken into custody and arrested by

the FBI.

In denying Rashed's motion to dismiss, the district court

not only rejected Rashed's sham prosecution theory but also

concluded that none of the charges satisfied the Blockburger

test for determining when crimes stated in two charges

constitute "the same offense." Rashed, 83 F. Supp. 2d at

103-04; see Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299

(1932). We affirm, but because we reject the sham prosecution theory we have no need to address the Blockburger issue.

* * *

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment

provides that "[n]o person shall be subject for the same

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offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb." The

clause forecloses multiple prosecutions for the same offense

by the same sovereign, but not ones by different sovereigns.

Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82 (1985) (successive state-state

prosecutions); United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313 (1978)

(successive Navajo tribal court-federal prosecutions); Abbate

v. United States, 359 U.S. 187 (1959) (successive state-federal

prosecutions); United States v. Rezaq, 134 F.3d 1121, 1128

(D.C. Cir. 1998) (successive foreign-federal prosecutions).

The exception for dual sovereignty flows from the understanding that every sovereign has the authority to punish

infractions of its own laws. Wheeler, 435 U.S. at 317.

In Bartkus v. United States, 359 U.S. 121 (1959), however,

the Supreme Court implicitly suggested an exception to the

dual sovereignty doctrine. Illinois had brought a robbery

charge against a man who had been acquitted of the same

charge in federal court. The Court upheld the state prosecution, but emphasized that the evidence failed to show that

Illinois, in bringing its suit, had been "merely a tool of the

federal authorities" or that its prosecution had been "a sham

and a cover for a federal prosecution." Id. at 123-24. A

number of circuits have accordingly inferred a "sham prosecution" exception to dual sovereignty. See, for example,

United States v. Raymer, 941 F.2d 1031, 1037 (10th Cir.

1991); United States v. Bernhardt, 831 F.2d 181, 182 (9th Cir.

1987). United States v. Balsys, 524 U.S. 666 (1998), may

indicate further support for such an exception. There the

Court held that while fear of prosecution in a foreign country

normally does not provide a basis for asserting the Fifth

Amendment right against self-incrimination in a judicial proceeding in the United States, a different result might be

appropriate if the foreign nation brought its prosecution "as

much on behalf of the United States as of the prosecuting

nation" itself. Id. at 698-99.

Several courts have stressed that the Bartkus exception is

a narrow one and difficult to prove. United States v. Guzman, 85 F.3d 823, 827 (1st Cir. 1996) (narrow exception);

United States v. Aboumoussallem, 726 F.2d 906, 910 (2d Cir.

1984) (same); United States v. Figueroa-Soto, 938 F.2d 1015,

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1019 (9th Cir. 1991) (difficult to prove). Others have questioned whether the exception even exists. United States v.

Brocksmith, 991 F.2d 1363, 1366 (7th Cir. 1993); United

States v. Patterson, 809 F.2d 244, 247 n. 2 (5th Cir. 1987).

We have uncovered no case where a court found successive

prosecutions by different nations to fall under the Bartkus

exception, though defendants have tried the theory in at least

four cases. See Guzman, 85 F.3d at 827; United States v.

Baptista-Rodriguez, 17 F.3d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir. 1994);

United States v. McRary, 616 F.2d 181, 185 (5th Cir. 1980);

United States v. Richardson, 580 F.2d 946, 947 (9th Cir.

1978). The government suggests that we should hold the

exception inapplicable to foreign prosecutions. It reasons

foreign governments are never subject to the sort of federal

domination that states may be, so that the sham relationship

is much less probable in the international context. Improbability may imply rarity, but we do not think the sham

relationship so unlikely as to justify a blanket rule against the

exception in the foreign prosecution context.

As a preliminary matter, we are not persuaded by Rashed's

suggestion that the United States may have been in "privity"

with Greece in that government's prosecution, and that this

privity argues for finding the sham exception applicable.

(Rashed makes no collateral estoppel claim per se, identifying

no issue that was resolved in his favor in the Greek litigation.)

In general, a party is in privity with another if it "assume[d]

control over litigation" by the other. Montana v. United

States, 440 U.S. 147, 154 (1979). See also 18 Charles Alan

Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal

Practice and Procedure s 4451, at 428 (1981). Wright, Miller

& Cooper suggest that control is enough if "the nonparty has

the actual measure of control or opportunity to control that

might reasonably be expected between two formal coparties."

Id. at 430, citing Jones v. Craig, 212 F.2d 187 (6th Cir. 1954).

Courts have occasionally hinted that privity as ordinarily

conceived might justify application of collateral estoppel in

the dual sovereignty context, but, finding privity requirements unmet, have not reached the issue. See United States

v. Davis, 906 F.2d 829, 834-35 (2d Cir. 1990); United States

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v. Parcel Land at 5 Bell Rock Road, 896 F.2d 605, 610 (1st

Cir. 1990) (Breyer, J.). Because double jeopardy is a constitutionalized instance of preclusion principles, Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 445-46 (1970), a privity or control test

represents an obvious candidate as the standard for an exception to the dual sovereignty doctrine.

Yet in Bartkus the Court used the terms "sham" and

"tool," which indicate--and have uniformly been understood

by the lower federal courts to indicate--a far more special

relationship than is suggested by the concept of privity or

control, namely a relationship with a strong element of manipulation. See United States v. Liddy, 542 F.2d 76, 79 (D.C.

Cir. 1976) (reading Bartkus as support for the proposition

that "federal authorities are proscribed from manipulating

state processes to accomplish that which they cannot constitutionally do themselves"); Guzman, 85 F.3d at 827 (emphasizing that the Bartkus exception is limited to situations in

which one sovereign "thoroughly dominates or manipulates

the prosecutorial machinery of another"). An easy case, for

example, might be where a nation pursued a prosecution that

did little or nothing to advance its independent interests,

under threat of withdrawal of American aid on which its

leadership was heavily dependent. But where the United

States simply lends a foreign government investigatory resources, the manipulation moniker is out of the question. Id.

at 828; Baptista-Rodriguez, 17 F.3d at 1361.

The Court's presumably deliberate non-use of the privity

concept may also have reflected a recognition that under the

dual sovereignty doctrine one sovereign's right to enforce its

criminal law cannot be classified as the same "cause of action"

as another's, and that the double jeopardy bar is more akin to

claim preclusion than to issue preclusion. Cf. Montana v.

United States, 440 U.S. at 154 (stating that res judicata

applies only to the same cause of action, and a cause of action

vicariously asserted by a nonparty "differs by definition from

that which he subsequently seeks to litigate in his own

right"); but see Richards v. Jefferson County, 517 U.S. 793,

797-802 (1996) (noting that res judicata may bar claims by

privies, but finding application of res judicata a violation of

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due process on the specific facts before it). In any event, the

Bartkus Court's selection of one formula precludes our adoption of another. And here we needn't consider the issuepreclusive effects of foreign judgments.

The central issue in this case is whether Greece, in prosecuting Rashed, was a tool of the United States and the Greek

trial a sham. Two facts render Rashed's claim implausible.

First, the United States wanted Greece to extradite Rashed,

not to prosecute him. Greece stood its ground and refused.

Rashed acknowledges both the U.S. preference and the Greek

resistance. He points to what we may loosely call evidence

that the United States threatened Greece with sanctions, but

that evidence itself shows that the threats (if made at all)

were always intended to secure extradition. See, for example, U.S. Blackmails Greece on Rashid [sic] Matter Through

Aid, Eleftherotypia, May 27, 1989; New Pressure by the U.S.

for Rashid [sic], Eleftherotypia, Sept. 30, 1989; Statement on

the Rashid [sic] Case by Efstratios Korakas, Member of

Greek Parliament representing the Communist Party of

Greece and Member of European Parliament as of June

1999. The stalwart Greek resistance dispels any notion that

Greece had "little or no independent volition" in its proceeding. Liddy, 542 F.2d at 79 (D.C. Cir. 1976); United States v.

38 Whalers Cove Drive, 954 F.2d 29, 38 (2d Cir. 1992).

Rashed argues that the United States preferred a Greek

prosecution to Rashed's release. But that the United States

got its second preference over its third is not evidence either

of control or of a sham prosecution, especially where the

United States's first option would have avoided the double

jeopardy problem altogether. Moreover, the only evidence

Rashed has for the proposition that the United States sought

a Greek prosecution on terrorism charges is unsubstantiated

Greek newspaper stories claiming that "[r]umors have it that

the Americans don't necessarily want Rashid [sic] right now,

provided he stays in prison and is not let free." U.S.: Cut

Off Relations with the Arabs!, Pondiki, Feb. 17, 1989. See

also The Blade--The Americans Find New "Evidence", Pondiki, Feb. 24, 1989. Had Rashed read the two stories in their

entirety he would have learned that the United States did not

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want Rashed imprisoned on the terrorism charges. Rather,

the scuttlebutt offered in the articles is that the United States

wanted a prison guard to plant a knife on Rashed while he

was awaiting extradition and have the Greek courts imprison

him for the separate crime of possession of an illegal weapon.

Second, Greece had an undeniable duty under the Montreal

Convention to extradite Rashed. Montreal Convention, art.

8, 24 U.S.T. at 571. Once it rebuffed the United States's

extradition request, however, it was bound by the same treaty

to prosecute. Id., art. 7, 24 U.S.T. at 571. Rashed's response

is that the United States tricked Greece into arresting him;

thus, but for the trick, Greece would never have faced the

dilemma of having to extradite or prosecute. But even after

the arrest, Greece could have chosen extradition; yet it

refused to extradite, contrary to the United States' wishes

and in the face of alleged congressional hints of foreign aid

sanctions.

Rashed offers other items as clues that Greece was a tool of

the United States. First, he points to extensive cooperation

between the United States and Greece in his first trial.

Indeed, U.S. assistance was so pervasive that Greece gathered little of the presented evidence independently. But

Bartkus acknowledges that extensive law enforcement and

prosecutorial cooperation between two sovereigns does not

make a trial by either a sham. Bartkus, 359 U.S. at 122-23.

Indeed, courts have rejected the sham inference in the face of

more far-reaching cooperation than that which occurred between Greece and the United States. See, for example,

United States v. Padilla, 589 F.2d 481, 484 (10th Cir. 1978)

(rejecting a double jeopardy claim based on successive statefederal prosecutions although state prosecutor was also the

federal prosecutor and the only piece of evidence in the case

was the testimony of a state police officer). An inference of

sham prosecution from cooperation would be especially weak

where the Montreal Convention applies, for on these facts it

required the United States to afford Greece the maximum

possible assistance. Montreal Convention, art. 11(1), 24

U.S.T. at 572. Finally, it would little advance the purposes of

the Double Jeopardy Clause to require that the country more

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bent on prosecution refuse to cooperate with the other,

forcing the latter to waste its resources in a redundant

investigation.

Rashed also argues that Greece had no independent interest in prosecuting him. It is true that none of the offenses for

which Rashed was prosecuted in Greece had any specific link

to Greece, such as it being the site of the offense or the

residence of the victims. But international law recognizes

stopping terrorism and piracy on (or above) the high seas as

an interest of all nations, an interest strong enough to give

the Greek courts jurisdiction. Restatement (Third) of the

Foreign Relations Law of the United States, ss 404, esp.

comment a, and 423 (1987). Further, Greece had an interest

in abiding by its treaty obligations--here the requirement of

the Montreal Convention, in the event of a refusal of extradition, to prosecute Rashed "without exception whatsoever and

whether or not the offense was committed in its territory."

Montreal Convention, art. 7, 24 U.S.T. at 571.

The government suggests--and Rashed accepts--that one

possible sign that the United States was using the Greek

prosecution as its "tool" would be an indication that it was

able, through the Greek prosecution, to achieve something it

could not under the U.S. Constitution. Cf. United States v.

Liddy, 542 F.2d at 79. Of course a procedural divergence

alone would necessarily give only a weak sign; states and

nations naturally vary in details of criminal procedure, so a

rule inferring manipulative intent merely from a few prosecutorial advantages in the state or nation that initially prosecutes would gut the dual sovereignty rule. Similarly, the fact

that dual prosecution is likely to increase the probability of

conviction and the probable aggregate prison sentence is

alone of no consequence, as dual prosecution always has those

effects. But a prosecutorial advantage, coupled with some

evidence that the United States had helped bring it about, or

that its existence had induced the United States to prefer and

promote the foreign prosecution, might help support the

"tool" inference.

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All Rashed has to offer on this account is a law, passed by

Greece just before his trial, that had the effect of allowing

him to be tried to a panel of three judges rather than a mixed

jury of three judges and four lay jurors. Greek Law

1897/1990, art. 12, p 1 (Aug. 11, 1990). Rashed does not claim

that the United States pressured Greece into adopting the

law, or that the United States saw Rashed's right to a jury

trial as a hurdle to prosecution at home. Further, the

bedrock fact that the United States sought extradition over a

Greek prosecution is completely inconsistent with an intent to

bypass the U.S. Constitution.

Ultimately we find that Rashed has failed to identify evidence that would place his case within the Bartkus "sham

prosecution" exception. It is possible that, because terrorist

acts committed anywhere are criminal in all countries,

Rashed might find himself confronted with a Sisyphean challenge: defeating the claims against him in one country only to

have them brought against him in another. As this is only

his second prosecution, the hazard is speculative. We leave

the solution to another day.

As a corollary to his double jeopardy claim, Rashed seeks

discovery of information related to his "sham prosecution"

allegation. We see no reason to disturb the district court's

denial of his request. Because Rashed's defense here relates

not to refutation of the government's case in chief but to

establishment of an independent constitutional bar to the

prosecution, Rule 16(a)(1)(C) of the Fed. R. Crim. P. is

inapplicable. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 462-

63 (1996). Armstrong requires the defendant, as a condition

of discovery, to adduce "some evidence tending to show the

essential elements of" the defense, not just evidence "material" to that defense as required by Rule 16. Id. at 462, 470.

In Armstrong, which involved a claim of selective prosecution,

the Court explained that this "rigorous standard" was suitable to prevent undue diversion of prosecutorial resources

and disclosure of the government's prosecution strategy. Id.

at 468. Discovery into Rashed's claim of "sham" prosecution

presents the same issues of prosecutorial resources and stratUSCA Case #00-3006 Document #563587 Filed: 12/19/2000 Page 10 of 11
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egy, together with sensitive matters of foreign relations. Cf.

United States v. Yunis, 867 F.2d 617, 622-23 (D.C. Cir. 1989).

In any case, Rashed has not met either the Armstrong or

the Rule 16(a)(1)(C) test. He doesn't claim that the United

States preferred prosecution to extradition, or that further

discovery would uncover evidence of such a preference. He

certainly cannot deny that the Montreal Convention required

prosecution once Greece refused extradition to the United

States. The most that Rashed suggests would be uncovered

in discovery is evidence that the United States, upon learning

that Greece would refuse extradition, encouraged that government to prosecute rather than release Rashed. But such

evidence, as we have explained, would not sustain a conclusion

that Greece was a tool of the United States.

The district court's decision to deny Rashed's motion to

dismiss on grounds of double jeopardy is

Affirmed.

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