Opinion ID: 2451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Majority's Objections

Text: The majority has two objections to a state-secrets resolution. First, it hints that we have an unflagging obligation to address the Bivens issue before turning to the question of state secrets. See supra at 575-76 (True, courts can  with difficulty and resourcefulness  consider state secrets and even reexamine judgments made in the foreign affairs context when we must, that is, when there is an unflagging duty to exercise our jurisdiction. (emphasis in original)). We highly doubt the jurisprudential necessity of addressing a broader, more difficult Bivens question when this case might be resolved on its facts by application of well-established state-secrets procedures. As the panel majority pointed out, non-merits dispositions do not require a predicate decision on subject-matter jurisdiction: The Supreme Court has, on several occasions, recognized that a federal court has leeway to choose among threshold grounds for denying audience to a case on the merits.... [A] federal court that dismisses on non-merits grounds before finding subject-matter jurisdiction makes no assumption of law-declaring power that violates separation of powers principles. See Arar, 532 F.3d at 172 (internal quotation marks, citations, and ellipses omitted). The Supreme Court acted similarly in Iqbal, assuming the viability of a Bivens action in order to decide the case on the basis of pleading and supervisory liability. See Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1948. Second, the majority professes concern about the [t]he court's reliance on information that cannot be introduced into the public record, which the Court says is likely to be a common feature of any Bivens actions arising in the context of alleged extraordinary rendition. Supra at 577. The majority thinks that this concern should provoke hesitation, given the strong preference in the Anglo-American legal tradition for open court proceedings. Supra at 577. `A trial is a public event. What transpires in the court room is public property.' Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 574 n. 9, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980) (plurality opinion) (quoting Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 374, 67 S.Ct. 1249, 91 L.Ed. 1546 (1947)). We applaud the majority's recognition of the fundamental importance of the principle that the courts are presumed to be open. See supra at 598; and see, e.g., Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 604, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982). It respects this Circuit's history of meticulously guarding constitutional protection for access to the courts in the sense of the ability of a citizen to see and hear, and in that way to participate in, the workings of the justice system. [38] See, e.g., Huminski v. Corsones, 396 F.3d 53, 56 (2d Cir.2005); Hartford Courant Co. v. Pellegrino, 380 F.3d 83 (2d Cir.2004); ABC, Inc. v. Stewart, 360 F.3d 90 (2d Cir.2004); United States v. Graham, 257 F.3d 143 (2d Cir.2001); Westmoreland v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 752 F.2d 16 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1017, 105 S.Ct. 3478, 87 L.Ed.2d 614 (1985); Joy v. North, 692 F.2d 880 (2d Cir.1982). But it follows not at all, we think, from the presumption of openness however gauged that the open nature of the federal courts is properly weighed as a factor in the Bivens analysis. The presumption of openness is just that, a presumption. In can be, and routinely is, overcome. We regularly hear, on the basis of partially or totally sealed records, not only cases implicating national security or diplomatic concerns, see, e.g., Doe, 576 F.3d 95; In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in E. Afr. v. Odeh, 552 F.3d 93 (2d Cir.2008), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 2778, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2009), but those involving criminal defendants' cooperation with prosecutors, see, e.g., United States v. Doe, 314 Fed.Appx. 350 (2d Cir.2008) (summary order), other criminal matters, see, e.g., U.S. v. Silleg, 311 F.3d 557, 560 (2d Cir.2002), probation department reports, upon which federal criminal sentences are to a significant extent typically based, see, e.g., United States v. Parnell, 524 F.3d 166, 168 n. 1 (2d Cir.2008) (per curiam); United States v. Molina, 356 F.3d 269, 275 (2d Cir.2004), child welfare, see, e.g., Sealed v. Sealed, 332 F.3d 51 (2d Cir.2003), trade secrets, see, e.g., In re Orion Pictures Corp., 21 F.3d 24 (2d Cir.1994), and any manner of other criminal and civil matters. Hardly a week goes by, in our collective experience, in which some document or fact is not considered by a panel of this Court out of the public eye. We accommodate the public interest in proceedings before federal courts by rigorously adhering to the presumption of openness, but the presumption is often overcome. The majority's notion that because the presumption is likely to be overcome in a particular species of case we should therefore foreclose a remedy or otherwise limit our jurisdiction in order to accommodate the public suspicion of secrecy, is misconceived. Denying relief to an entire class of persons with presumably legitimate claims in part because some of their number may lose in proceedings that are held in secret or because secrets may cause some such claims to fail, makes little sense to us. It could work endless mischief were courts to turn their backs on such cases, their litigants, and the litigants' asserted rights. We are not aware of any other area of our jurisprudence where the ability to overcome the presumption of openness has been relied upon to deny a remedy to a litigant. We do not think it should be here.