Opinion ID: 3039142
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Medicine Restrictions

Text: [3] Sacks challenges only the facial validity of the restrictions on unlicensed medical donations, and not the application of the licensing regime. Sacks concedes that he did not apply for an OFAC license to donate humanitarian medical supplies to Iraq, as 31 C.F.R. § 575.521 allowed. We clarified in United States v. Hugs that a plaintiff’s failure to apply for an available permit precludes him from challenging the operation of the permitting scheme but not the facial validity of the statute or regulations. 109 F.3d 1375, 1378 (9th Cir. 1997). Sacks therefore lacks standing to challenge the operation of the licensing regime but is not prohibited under Hugs from facially challenging the Medicine Restrictions. Sacks cites three reasons why he satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement as to the Medicine Restrictions: (1) he has been actually punished for violating the Medicine Restrictions; (2) he will be called upon to pay the penalties assessed against Voices; and (3) he legitimately fears future prosecution for openly violating the Medicine Restrictions. We find none of these to be persuasive. [4] Sacks contends that his 2003 penalty was assessed for violation of the Medicine Restrictions. We disagree. OFAC’s treatment of Sacks indicates its belief that penalties were assessed only for the Travel Ban violation. The Penalty Notice, while confusing, expressly references “Count 6” of the earlier Notice, which referred only to the Travel Ban. Moreover, it was reasonable for OFAC to treat Sacks’s admission that he “brought” medical supplies to Iraq as an admission that he traveled to Iraq. As Sacks concedes, bringing SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL 17333 medical supplies to Iraq can be accomplished only by traveling to that country to deliver them. Finally, the $10,000 penalty ultimately levied against Sacks was consistent with those proposed in the Penalty Notice for violating the Travel Ban; in contrast, the proposed penalties for violating the Medicine Restrictions were $20,000 per violation. Therefore, we conclude that Sacks was not penalized for violating the Medicine Restrictions. [5] Nor does Sacks’s status as a member of Voices expose him to liability for the penalties assessed against the organization so as to confer standing. Sacks does not suggest that he has third-party standing to challenge the Medicine Restrictions on Voices’s behalf; indeed, Voices has already challenged the penalties assessed against it. See Office of Foreign Assets Control v. Voices in the Wilderness, 329 F. Supp. 2d 71 (D.D.C. 2004). More importantly, nothing in the Amended Complaint or in the record indicates that Sacks has any financial responsibility for Voices’s fine; that action against him has been initiated or is imminent; or even that OFAC has ever turned to individual group members of an unincorporated organization to collect civil fines against the organization. Therefore, Sacks’s mere membership in a penalized organization does not create a “ ‘realistic danger of [his] sustaining a direct injury as a result of the statute’s operation or enforcement.’ ” LSO, Ltd. v. Stroh, 205 F.3d 1146, 1154 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting Babbitt v. United Farm Workers Nat’l Union, 442 U.S. 289, 298 (1979)). [6] Finally, Sacks does not face imminent, or even likely, prosecution for violating the Medicine Restrictions. It is true that the Executive Order terminating the “national emergency” in Iraq explicitly reserved the government’s right to bring proceedings based on acts in violation of the sanctions committed before the sanctions expired. Exec. Order No. 13,350, 69 Fed. Reg. 46,055, 46,055 (July 29, 2004). Therefore, Sacks theoretically may be subject to penalties for taking medicine 17334 SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL to Iraq, even though the United States has allowed humanitarian medical donations to Iraq since May 2003. However, while it is well-established that an individual need not await prosecution under a law or regulation before challenging it, see Babbitt, 442 U.S. at 298; Canatella v. California, 304 F.3d 843, 852 (9th Cir. 2002) (as amended), we require a “genuine threat of imminent prosecution” and not merely an “imaginary or speculative fear of prosecution.” San Diego County Gun Rights Comm. v. Reno, 98 F.3d 1121, 1126 (9th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). The requirement that a fear of prosecution be fairly certain to confer standing on the plaintiff is informed by the same considerations as the doctrine of ripeness. The ripeness requirement aims to “prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148 (1967), abrogated on other grounds by Caifano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99 (1977). As we have previously observed, “the constitutional component of the ripeness inquiry . . . , in many cases, . . . coincides squarely with standing’s injury in fact prong.” Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights Comm’n, 220 F.3d 1134, 1138 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc). Therefore, we employ the same test to determine if a plaintiff has established standing based on a fear of prosecution that we use to determine if a case or controversy is sufficiently ripe. In evaluating the genuineness of a claimed threat of prosecution, we look to whether the plaintiffs have articulated a “concrete plan” to violate the law in question, whether the prosecuting authorities have communicated a specific warning or threat to initiate proceedings, and the history of past prosecution or enforcement under the challenged statute. See id. at 1139 (citing San Diego County Gun Rights Comm. 98 F.3d at 1126-27). Whether viewed through the lens of SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL 17335 standing or ripeness, Sacks’s challenge to the Medicine Restrictions is not justiciable. Sacks has established two of the requisite elements required to survive the motion to dismiss on standing or ripeness grounds. He had more than a “concrete plan” to violate the Medicine Restrictions; he admits that he actually did violate them on a number of occasions. See Jacobus v. Alaska, 338 F.3d 1095, 1105 (9th Cir. 2003). He also alleges that OFAC has historically targeted other alleged violators of the Medicine Restrictions, including Voices. Because, on review of a district court’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, we assume all facts alleged in the Amended Complaint are true, see Bassidji v. Goe, 413 F.3d 928, 930 (9th Cir. 2005), these allegations are sufficient to satisfy the first two elements. Sacks’s fear of prosecution runs aground on the government’s decision to charge and penalize him for only the violation of the Travel Ban and not for the Medicine Restrictions violation. In Jacobus v. Alaska, we similarly confronted a plaintiff who feared future prosecution under a repealed statute. The plaintiffs in Jacobus had knowingly violated Alaska campaign finance laws capping contributions to political parties and volunteer professional services to campaigns. 338 F.3d at 1101. In the wake of a district court ruling against the state, the Alaska legislature revised its campaign finance laws to remove the offending provisions, but the state continued to argue their legality on appeal. The Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) then wrote Jacobus indicating that “if the law were upheld it reserved the right to prosecute any past violations” he had committed, “although it would not pursue any enforcement action during the pendency of the litigation.” Id. at 1104. We held that Jacobus faced a genuine threat of imminent prosecution because even though “the letter sent to Jacobus does not threaten to initiate enforcement proceedings in so many words, it indicates that APOC is only awaiting the outcome of the litigation to initiate such proceedings.” Id. at 1105. 17336 SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL Sacks is in a materially different position than the Jacobus plaintiffs. Contrary to Sacks’s contention, the government’s decision to penalize him for only the Travel Ban violation, when it was fully aware he had also violated the Medicine Restrictions, indicates that the government does not intend to penalize him for any of his numerous violations of the Medicine Restrictions. OFAC has not taken the step it normally would take to express its intent to penalize Sacks and thus preserve its right to do so, by sending him a prepenalty notice. The Amended Complaint is devoid of any allegations suggesting that OFAC has communicated an intent to punish him further. [7] To demonstrate the requisite “specific warning or threat to initiate proceedings,” Thomas, 220 F.3d at 1139, Sacks points only to a footnote in OFAC’s Motion to Dismiss that reads: “Although OFAC has not yet acted in response to Plaintiff’s eight other trips to Iraq, it reserves the right to do so in the future.” While this language is similar to the language used by the agency in Jacobus, that alone does not demonstrate that prosecution is imminent. First and foremost, unlike the agency in Jacobus, which could not bring charges against the plaintiff because the relevant law had been declared unconstitutional by the district court, nothing has prevented OFAC from charging Sacks under the Medicine Restrictions over the last decade. OFAC’s declination to charge him for the Medicine Restrictions violations during the last eight years, therefore, is a strong indication of its lack of intent to do so in the future. Furthermore, the footnote Sacks relies on to demonstrate the threat of prosecution does not mention the Medicine Restrictions at all, but rather references his violation for engaging in travel-related transactions. Therefore, Sacks has failed to demonstrate any specific threat of prosecution for violations of the Medicine Restrictions. See Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 180 (noting that Article III requires plaintiff’s injury to be “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical”). SACKS v. OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL 17337 Moreover, it is not clear from the Amended Complaint that OFAC could still bring charges against Sacks for violating the Medicine Restrictions. The relevant statute of limitations for the government to bring proceedings enforcing a civil penalty is five years from the date of the act. See 28 U.S.C. § 2462. A plaintiff’s standing is evaluated as of the date the complaint was filed, in this case January 14, 2004. See Bernhardt v. County of Los Angeles, 279 F.3d 862, 868 (9th Cir. 2002). The Amended Complaint does not allege that Sacks violated the Medicine Restrictions after January 14, 1999. The alleged violations are thus likely time-barred, diminishing any threat of prosecution that would have supported standing at the outset of this suit. Moreover, even if Sacks had more recently violated the Medicine Restrictions, it is quite possible that the statute of limitations on those violations has also passed, rendering his fears of prosecution moot. See Jacobus, 338 F.3d at 1102 (noting that mootness may warrant dismissal where it is “ ‘absolutely clear that the litigant no longer ha[s] any need of the judicial protection’ ” he seeks (quoting Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Slater, 528 U.S. 216, 224 (2000))). [8] Because Sacks fails to allege a concrete and imminent injury-in-fact caused by the Medicine Restrictions, this claim is not justiciable both for lack of standing and ripeness. Of course, should OFAC take action to penalize Sacks for violating the Medicine Restrictions at a later date, he would then have standing to challenge their legitimacy. We therefore do not reach Sacks’s challenge to the district court’s ruling that the Medicine Restrictions were validly promulgated. See Mustang Marketing, Inc. v. Chevron Products Co., 406 F.3d 600, 606 (9th Cir. 2005) (“Our review is not limited to a consideration of the grounds upon which the district court decided the issues; the Court can affirm the district court on any grounds supported by the record.”).