Opinion ID: 771934
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Apply the Terms of the Hyde Amendment Disjunctively

Text: 32 Under the Hyde Amendment, a court may award fees and costs to a prevailing criminal defendant if the court finds that the position of the United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith, unless the court finds that special circumstances make such an award unjust. 18 U.S.C. S 3006A (historical and statutory notes). The plain meaning of the text indicates that the test is disjunctive--satisfaction of any one of the three criteria (vexatiousness, frivolousness, or bad faith) should suffice by itself to justify an award. Appellants argue that the district court failed to apply the test in this way, instead holding Appellants to a single generalized burden of proof. 33 The argument is without merit. The district court engaged in a detailed analysis of the text of the Hyde Amendment, including separate definitions of the terms vexatious, frivolous, and bad faith. The district court stated that it had already found, in Tucor I, that the government honestly believed at the plea hearing that the conduct in the Indictment was prohibited by law and did not fall within the immunity clauses of the Shipping Act. That factual finding negates bad faith. The district court further concluded that the legal position taken by the government was a defensible one in a first impression circumstance. That conclusion is sufficient to establish that the prosecution was neither vexatious nor frivolous, on any understanding of those terms. 1 For all of these reasons, Appellants' argument fails. 34