Opinion ID: 548914
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Without regard to the doctrine's exceptions.

Text: 7 The mootness doctrine, deriving from Article III, limits federal courts to deciding actual, ongoing controversies. Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 317, 108 S.Ct. 592, 600-01, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988). Even where litigation poses a live controversy when filed, the doctrine requires a federal court to refrain from deciding it if events have so transpired that the decision will neither presently affect the parties' rights nor have a more-than-speculative chance of affecting them in the future. Transwestern Pipeline Co. v. FERC, 897 F.2d 570, 575 (D.C.Cir.1990); see also Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401, 95 S.Ct. 2330, 2334, 45 L.Ed.2d 272 (1975). This limitation subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings, trial and appellate. Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 1253, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990). 8 Appellees do not claim that the Armstrong Amendment has had any residual effect on their First Amendment rights since it was superseded by the 1990 Appropriations Act. The 1989 Act appropriated funds for the District of Columbia for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1989, Pub.L. No. 100-462, 102 Stat. at 2269, and Sec. 108 of the 1989 Act pinned down its automatic expiration with an explicit statement that [n]o part of any appropriation contained in this Act shall remain available for obligation beyond the current fiscal year unless expressly so provided herein. 1 Pub.L. No. 100-462, Sec. 108, 102 Stat. at 2269-8. After the 1989 Act's last extension expired, the Armstrong Amendment's funding condition ceased to have any effect. 9 Appellees argue, however, that the case is not moot because vacating the district court's declaratory judgment would leave open the formal possibility of prosecution under the Anti-Deficiency Act, which forbids knowingly and willfully expending government funds without authorization from Congress. Brief for Appellees at 39-40; see 31 U.S.C. Secs. 1341(a), 1342 & 1350 (1988). They rely primarily on Edgar v. MITE Corp., 457 U.S. 624, 102 S.Ct. 2629, 73 L.Ed.2d 269 (1982), in which the Court found that the possibility of civil and criminal liability saved the case from mootness. Id. at 630, 102 S.Ct. at 2634. The plaintiff corporation had made a tender offer in disregard of Illinois's anti-takeover law and secured an injunction against the law's enforcement, but it later withdrew the offer. The Secretary of State of Illinois, who was charged with enforcing the Illinois act, had represented to the court of appeals that he intend[ed] to enforce the Act against MITE. Id. 10 Here, by contrast, there is no such threat. Quite the opposite: the government at oral argument not only stated that no one has ever suggested that there would be [a prosecution], but also conceded formally for the record that the existence of a judgment during that time would be a complete and adequate defense to any prosecution. 11 The concession gives formality to the obvious--the nonviability of any such prosecution. Our research has failed to turn up a single prosecution under the Anti-Deficiency Act in its entire existence since 1905. 33 Stat. 1214, 1257-58, ch. 1484, Sec. 4 (1905). Moreover, the appellees would have at least two strong legal arguments should some future prosecutor try to dust it off. First, the district court's decision (and the panel affirmance) would raise a serious question whether appellees had the state of mind necessary for a violation. Second, although the MITE majority declined to resolve whether a later-vacated federal injunction would protect MITE from a state prosecution, 457 U.S. at 630, 102 S.Ct. at 2634, and Justice Stevens concluded that it could not, id. at 647-54, 102 S.Ct. at 2643-47, no federalism concerns would prevent an immunizing effect in the present case. 2 Indeed, the few circuits faced with the question have held that a federal judgment, later reversed or found erroneous, is a defense to a federal prosecution for acts committed while the judgment was in effect. Thus in United States v. Mancuso, 139 F.2d 90 (3rd Cir.1943), the court held that a draftee who did not report for duty because a district court had enjoined enforcement of his induction order could not be prosecuted for failing to appear--despite the injunction's having been issued erroneously. And in United States v. Albertini, 830 F.2d 985 (9th Cir.1987), the court reversed a criminal conviction for acts taken in conformity with a decision of its own that was later reversed by the Supreme Court. See also United States v. Brady, 710 F.Supp. 290 (D.Colo.1989); compare United States v. Bruscantini, 761 F.2d 640, 641-42 (11th Cir.1985) (rejecting argument that reliance on stated opinion of state judge and state prosecutor was a defense to federal charge). 12 Of course we cannot say that the risk of an attempted prosecution is zero. Later government representatives might try to persuade a court to distinguish Mancuso or to reject it. They might also believe that the government's present representation created no estoppel, and conceivably a court would agree. But see 1B Moore's Federal Practice p 0.405 at 239-40 (1988); Farmland Indus., Inc. v. Grain Bd. of Iraq, 904 F.2d 732, 739 (D.C.Cir.1990). But zero risk is not the test. Any assessment of the possible side effects of a case really should be painted in shades of gray, since few controversies are wholly beyond the power of changed circumstances to revive. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Bd. of Trade, 701 F.2d 653, 655 (7th Cir.1983); see also Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 3533.3 at 273-74 (1984) (framing issue as whether the prospect of future effects is too remote to justify decision); compare Babbitt v. United Farm Workers Nat'l Union, 442 U.S. 289, 302, 99 S.Ct. 2301, 2310-11, 60 L.Ed.2d 895 (1979) (pre-enforcement review of allegedly unconstitutional statute is allowable when fear of criminal prosecution ... is not imaginary or wholly speculative). The government's formal representation, and its stipulation as to the exonerating effect of the district court judgment, seem to us enough to overcome the formal--and realistically quite remote--possibility of prosecution. 13 While an explicit assertion of intent to prosecute can preserve a conflict's vitality, see MITE, and the risk may be great enough where the record on intent to prosecute is a blank, Charles v. Daley, 749 F.2d 452, 457 (7th Cir.1984) (amendment of criminal statute does not render challenge moot where defendants offered no evidence to rebut [the] possibility of prosecution for violations committed while deleted language was in effect), 3 we have found no case where a court has found that the possibility of prosecution kept a controversy alive in the face of the government's formal legal concession of the existence of a complete defense. The closest is Mesa Petroleum Co. v. Cities Service Co., 715 F.2d 1425 (10th Cir.1983), where the court said that a prosecutor's absence of ... intent to prosecute provided too slender a reed on which to rest our decision as to whether a live controversy is presented. Id. at 1431. In fact the officer charged with the enforcement of the act had simply told the court he had no current plans to prosecute. Before the district court, the agency had said that state law is determinative of [its] enforcement intentions, id., language that may well have seemed a deliberate equivocation. These quibblings are a far cry from the government's representation and concession here. 14 All told, then, appellees' proclaimed fear of prosecution under the Anti-Deficiency Act is far too speculative to keep the case alive. 15