Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-93-05310/USCOURTS-caDC-93-05310-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Assassination Archives and Research Center
Appellant
United States Department of Justice
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 12, 1994 Decided January 20, 1995

No. 93-5310

ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES AND RESEARCH CENTER,

APPELLANT

v.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(92cv02193)

James H. Lesar argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Peter R. Maier, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee. On

the brieffor appellee were Frank W. Hunger, Assistant AttorneyGeneral, Eric H. Holder, Jr., United

States Attorney, Leonard Schaitman and Robert M. Loeb, Attorneys, United States Department of

Justice.

Before: WILLIAMS, HENDERSON and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: The Assassination Archives and Research Center appeals an order

of the district court granting the Department of Justice's motion for summary judgment on the

Center's claims under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. § 552 (1988), and the

President John F. Kennedy AssassinationRecords Collection Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-526, 106

Stat. 3443 (1992) ("the JFK Act") (set out in 44 U.S.C. § 2107 note (Supp. 1993)). We agree with

the district court that the JFK Act does not create an implied private right of action for the release

of documents and that the substantive standards for release of documents under the JFK Act cannot

be grafted onto FOIA's procedures. We affirm.

* * *

On January 29, 1992 the Center submitted FOIA requests to the Federal Bureau of

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Investigation's headquarters and New York field office for "materialsrelating to Marita Lorenz which

pertain in any way to the assassination of President Kennedy, including any index cards." The FBI

searched its records and found two documents containing a total of four paragraphs responsive to

the request. It released one of these paragraphs, but withheld the other three as exempt from release

under FOIA exceptions (b)(7)(C) (the privacy exemption) and (b)(7)(D) (the confidential source

exemption). 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C), (b)(7)(D) (Supp. 1993).

The Center filed the present suit, challenging the adequacy of the FBI search and the

applicability of the FOIA exemptions. After the suit had been filed, Congress passed the JFK Act;

the Center then argued that the materials should be released under the JFK Act as well. The district

court rejected all of these arguments and entered summary judgment in favor of the Department of

Justice. Since the district court order, the Department has, pursuant to the JFK Act, released all but

one and one half lines of the previously withheld materials.

In the present appeal, the Center advancestwo theories under which document requesters in

its position could secure immediate judicial application of the substantive standards of the JFK Act

without having to wait for that Act's procedures to run their course. First, the Center maintains that

the JFK Act itself creates a private right of action for access to Kennedy assassination records.

Second, it contendsthat the substantive standards ofthe JFK Act should be enforceable under FOIA,

so that anyone could sue immediately under FOIA for records whose disclosure is required by the

JFK Act but not by FOIA.

A review of the JFK Act refutes both theories. The Act requires all government agencies to

compile all of their records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. § 5(c)(1), (c)(2)(A).

It defines "assassination record", § 3(2), and establishesforsuch records "a presumption ofimmediate

disclosure." § 2(a)(2). The Act provides for the postponement of disclosure given "clear and

convincing evidence" of certain enumerated circumstances, § 6, but declares that "only in the rarest

casesisthere any legitimate need for continued protection ofsuch records." § 2(a)(7). Furthermore,

it directsthat "allrecordsshould be eventuallydisclosed to enable the public to become fully informed

about the history surrounding the assassination". § 2(a)(2).

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To implement the Act, Congress has established the sort ofstructure that the Supreme Court

has called, in another context, a "comprehensive legislative scheme including an integrated system

of proceduresfor enforcement." See Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Russell, 473 U.S.

134, 147 (1985) (citations omitted). The process begins with the agency's search of its own records.

When an agency finds records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy for which it

determines that no postponement of disclosure is necessary, it must transmit them to the Archivist

of the United States, § 5(e)(1), who includes them in the "President John F. Kennedy Assassination

Records Collection." § 4(a). Within 30 days of transmission to the Archivist, all records are to be

"available to the public for inspection and copying at the National Archives". § 4(b).

Thus, an agencymay prevent disclosure of a record only by finding either that the record does

not concern the Kennedy assassination or that the record meetsthe standardsfor postponement. The

Act establishesthe Assassination Records Review Board ("the Board") to review these two types of

decisions and gives it broad fact-finding and remedial powers. § 7. In its review, the Board must

direct the agency to transmit recordsto the Archivist unless there is "clear and convincing evidence"

that the record is not an assassination record or that it qualifies for postponement. § 9(c)(1). For

records of executive branch agencies, the President may review the decisions of the Board. § 9(d).

Section 11 of the Act, "Rules of Construction," specifies how the Act isto be integrated into

pre-existing law. Of particular relevance in this context are § 11(b), which provides that the Act does

not limit or eliminate any rights under FOIA, and § 11(c), saying that "[n]othing in this Act shall be

construed to preclude judicial review, under chapter 7 of title 5, United States Code [the

Administrative Procedure Act] of final actions taken or required to be taken under this Act."

At bottom, the Center seeks to secure the advantage of the JFK Act's substantive release

criteria without the drawbacksfrom its perspectiveof the Act's procedures. Both of its theories

in support of that result run head on into Congress's intent that the standards of the Act should be

applied through the Act's own process, a process that includes review by the federal courts (where

available at all) only for "final actionstaken or required to be taken under [the JFK] Act", the review

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1 Because the President is not an "agency" within the meaning of the APA, see Franklin v.

Massachusetts, 112 S. Ct. 2767, 2775-76 (1992); Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282, 289 (D.C.

Cir. 1991), judicial review may never be available under the JFK Act for documents whose release

is subject to presidential review. 

explicitly preserved by § 11(c).1

The Center's first theory is that we should read the JFK Act as creating an implied private

right of action. On this issue of statutory construction, the "ultimate issue is whether Congress

intended to create a private right of action". California v. Sierra Club, 451 U.S. 287, 293 (1981)

(citations omitted). Where, as here, the statute expressly provides a remedy, it is "an "elemental

canon' of statutory construction that ... courts must be especially reluctant to provide additional

remedies." Karahalios v. National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1263, 489 U.S. 527,

533 (1989) (citations omitted).

Here Congress set up a Board to review agency decisions about JFK assassination records,

provided for presidential review of Board decisions in a specified set of cases, and preserved a role

for courts in the form of review under the APA of "final actions" under the Act. The obvious effect

of a private right of action would be to undercut the roles of both the Board and the President, who

would find the authority vested in thembyCongresstransferred wholesale to the courtsat the whim

of private requesters. We thus agree with the First Circuit's conclusion that direct enforcement of the

Act in the district courts would "disrupt the orderly workings of the statutory scheme". Sullivan v.

Central Intelligence Agency, 992 F.2d 1249, 1256 (1st Cir. 1993).

For similar reasons we find the Center's second argument, that the district court should have

applied the substantive standards of the JFK Act in the Center's FOIA suit, equally meritless. The

JFK Act and the FOIA are separate statutory schemes with separate sets of standards and separate

(and markedly different) enforcement mechanisms. There is no evidence that Congress intended that

the JFK Act standards be applied to FOIA review of documentsinvolving the Kennedy assassination.

The drafters ofthe JFK Act explicitly addressed the Act'srelationship to FOIA, using termsthat seem

to leave FOIA's completely separate character unaffected: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed

to eliminate or limit any right to file requests with any executive agency or seek judicialreview of the

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decisions pursuant to section 552 of title 5, United States Code [the Freedom of Information Act]."

JFK Act, § 11(b).

It is true that the JFK Act arose in part out of Congress's express concern that "the Freedom

of Information Act, as implemented by the executive branch, has prevented the timely public

disclosure of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." § 2(a)(5).

Accordingly the Act directs agencies to give priority to identifying, reviewing, and transmitting

documents that are the subject of FOIA litigation. § 5(c)(2)(G). Congress evidently hoped that

prompt administrative application of the Act's broader criteria for release would moot considerable

FOIAlitigation and would benefit those FOIArequesters who had long sought accessto assassination

records. See S. Rep. No. 102-328, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. 29, reprinted in 1992 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2965,

2978. That is exactly what happened in this case: under FOIA, the FBI found four paragraphs and

released only one; on applying the JFK Act's standards, the Bureau has now released all but one and

one-half lines. Even that material could conceivably be released as the administrative review

progresses. The Center's suggestion that "timely public disclosure" can be achieved only by entitling

FOIA litigantsto employ JFK Act standards assumesthat judicial intervention is necessary to prevent

agencies(and the Board and the President)fromdisregarding the Act. The assumption is inconsistent

with Congress's choice of procedures for JFK Act releases.

We thusfind no statutorywarrant for creating a private right of action to enforce the JFK Act,

either directly by implying such a cause of action, or through the subterfuge of judicially hybridizing

the two acts.

* * *

The Center finally argues that we should remand the case to the district court for further

consideration in light of the Supreme Court's decision in United States Department of Justice v.

Landano, 113 S. Ct. 2014 (1993), which adopted a narrower view of FOIA's confidential source

exemption, § 552(b)(7)(D), than this court had previously applied. But as the district court held that

the FBI's non-disclosures were proper not onlyunder (b)(7)(D) but also under the privacy exemption,

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§ 552(b)(7)(C), and the Center has not contested the (b)(7)(C) ruling, its attack on the court'sreading

of (b)(7)(D) is effectively moot. A remand would be pointless.

The judgment of the district court is

Affirmed.

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