Opinion ID: 3004492
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Defense Arguments and Precedents for

Text: Special Factors Although the principal elements of plaintiffs’ claims are familiar aspects of Bivens jurisprudence, the claims are challenging because they arose in a U.S. military prison in Iraq during a time of war. As the defendants acknowledged at oral argument, however, neither the Supreme Court nor any other federal circuit court has ever denied civilian U.S. citizens a civil remedy for their alleged torture by U.S. government officials.
The defendants’ argument that the courts should stay out of military affairs rests on the assumption that the plaintiffs are mounting a broad challenge to U.S. military and detention policy, raising issues of national security and even foreign relations. If plaintiffs were actually seeking a general review of “military actions and policies,” as the defense suggests, this case would present different issues. That is not what plaintiffs seek. They are not challenging military policymaking and procedure generally, nor an ongoing military action. They challenge only their particular torture at the hands and direction of U.S. military officials, contrary to statutory provisions and stated military policy, as Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 59 well as the Constitution. Allowing Bivens liability in these unusual circumstances would not make courts, as defendants suggest, “the ultimate arbiters of U.S. military or foreign policy.” We are sensitive to the defendants’ concerns that the judiciary should not interfere with military decisionmaking. The “Constitution recognizes that core strategic matters of warmaking” rest with the Executive. Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 531. But it is equally clear that “[w]hile we accord the greatest respect and consideration to the judgments of military authorities in matters relating to the actual prosecution of a war, and recognize that the scope of that discretion necessarily is wide, it does not infringe on the core role of the military for the courts to exercise their own time-honored and constitutionally mandated roles of reviewing and resolving claims.” Id. at 535; see also Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 19 (1942) (acknowledging that “the duty which rests on the courts, in time of war as well as in time of peace, [is] to preserve unimpaired the constitutional safeguards of civil liberty”). Recognizing the plaintiffs’ claims for such grave — and, we trust, such rare — constitutional wrongs by military officials, in a lawsuit to be heard well after the fact, should not impinge inappropriately on military decision-making. The defendants raise the concern that litigation of the plaintiffs’ claims “would inevitably require judicial intrusion into matters of national security.” See Wilson, 535 F.3d at 710. This may be a serious concern, but at a very pragmatic level, the fact that classified informa60 Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 tion (from years ago) might be implicated at some point in this litigation is not a bar to allowing it to go forward at this stage. If classified information becomes a problem, the law provides tools to deal with it. As Judge Calabresi explained in Arar v. Ashcroft, the state- secrets privilege is the appropriate tool by which state secrets are protected: “Denying a Bivens remedy because state secrets might be revealed is a bit like denying a criminal trial for fear that a juror might be intimidated: it allows a risk, that the law is already at great pains to eliminate, to negate entirely substantial rights and procedures.” 585 F.3d at 635 (Calabresi, J., dissenting). As the majority in Arar acknowledged, “courts can — with difficulty and resourcefulness — consider state secrets and even reexamine judgments made in the foreign affairs context when they must, that is, when there is an unflagging duty to exercise our jurisdiction.” Id. at 575-76. Fear of the judiciary “intruding” into national security should not prevent us from recognizing a remedy at this stage, in this case. Courts reviewing claims of torture in violation of statutes such as the Detainee Treatment Act or in violation of the Fifth Amendment do not endanger the separation of powers, but instead reinforce the complementary roles played by the three branches of our government. See, e.g., Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 742 (“The Framers’ inherent distrust of governmental power was the driving force behind the constitutional plan that allocated powers among three independent branches. This design serves not only to make Government accountable but also to secure individual liberty.”); Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 61 see also Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 536-37 (emphasizing, with respect to challenges to the factual basis of a citizen’s detention, that “it would turn our system of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen could not make his way to court with a challenge to . . . his detention by his Government, simply because the Executive opposes making available such a challenge”). The defendants’ broad argument that the judiciary should stay out of all matters implicating national security is too broad to be convincing. Our dissenting colleague suggests that “given the significant pitfalls of judicial entanglement in military decisionmaking, it must be Congress, not the courts, that extends the remedy and defines its limits.” Dissent at 88. We respectfully disagree. As the Supreme Court said in Hamdi: “Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive . . . in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.” 542 U.S. at 536. Recent habeas corpus cases reinforce our under- standing that federal courts have a role to play in safeguarding citizens’ rights, even in times of war. The Hamdi Court, examining a claim by an American citizen detained on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant, held that the detainee was entitled to contest the basis for his detention. “What are the allowable limits of military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are judicial questions.” Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 535, quoting Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 401 (1932). 62 Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 The Munaf Court later made clear that the habeas statute “extends to American citizens held overseas by American forces.” Munaf, 553 U.S. at 680. Thus, courts may enforce the habeas rights of U.S. citizens in U.S. military custody in Iraq, though in Munaf itself, relief was denied because Iraq had a sovereign right to criminally prosecute the petitioners. Id. at 694-95. Most recently, in Boumediene, the Supreme Court held that aliens detained as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay were entitled to seek a writ of habeas corpus to challenge their detention and that the Detainee Treatment Act review procedures were an inadequate alternative to habeas corpus. 553 U.S. at 795. This line of cases undermines the defendants’ broad insistence that the judiciary must stay out of all matters concerning wartime detention and interrogation issues.18 18 The defendants suggest that “it is telling” that the plaintiffs rely on habeas corpus cases rather than cases permitting Bivens claims in the context of reviewing military actions and policies, because habeas is a remedy authorized by statute and the Constitution while Bivens is merely a judicially-created remedy for damages, with what the defense argues is a presumption against recognizing claims in new contexts. The argument is not persuasive. Those cases also involve some judicial inquiry into matters affecting national security and military activity. Hamdi, Munaf, and Boumediene thus weigh against the argument that the courts must simply defer to executive authorities in a case involving alleged torture of a U.S. citizen in U.S. military custody. Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 63 The fact that the plaintiffs are U.S. citizens is a key consideration here as we weigh whether a Bivens action may proceed.1 9 As the Court in Reid concluded: “When the Government reaches out to punish a citizen who is abroad, the shield which the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution provide to protect his life and liberty should not be stripped away just because he happens to be in another land.” Reid, 354 U.S. at 6 (plurality opinion of Black, J.); see also Kar v. Rumsfeld, 580 F. Supp. 2d 80, 83 (D.D.C. 2008) (finding that the “Fourth and Fifth Amendments certainly protect U.S. citizens detained in the course of hostilities in Iraq”). The defendants cite a number of cases, both habeas corpus and Bivens cases, for the proposition that the judiciary should not create damages remedies in the context of foreign affairs. Almost all of these were suits by aliens, not U.S. citizens, detained and suspected of terrorism ties. For example, the defendants cite Arar v. Ashcroft, where the sharply divided Second Circuit declined to recognize an alien’s Bivens claim for “extra- 19 This is not to say that we think that citizenship should be a dispositive factor in all Bivens cases implicating national security. But as we explain, in the context of this particular set of facts and allegations, U.S. citizenship or permanent resident alien status counsels in favor of recognizing a judicial remedy against federal officials even if the result might be different for an alien’s similar claim. Such an alien could have his own government intervene to protect his rights, and such claims could implicate foreign affairs and diplomacy in a way that this case does not. 64 Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 ordinary rendition” because several related “special factors” counseled hesitation. 585 F.3d at 575-81. The plaintiff in Arar was an alien with Syrian and Canadian citizenship who challenged an alleged U.S. presidential policy allowing extraordinary rendition and torture by foreign governments. The majority found that allowing the alien plaintiff to proceed with a Bivens claim “would have the natural tendency to affect diplomacy, foreign policy, and the security of the nation, and that fact counsels hesitation.” Id. at 574. More recently, the D.C. Circuit held that Afghan and Iraqi citizens who alleged that they were tortured in U.S. custody in those nations could not pursue Bivens claims against U.S. officials, including Secretary Rumsfeld. Ali v. Rumsfeld, ___ F.3d ___, 2011 WL 2462851 (D.C. Cir. June 21, 2011).2 0 We are fully aware that prohibitions against torture are matters of international law as well as United States law, and that those prohibitions reflect basic and universal human rights. The question of remedies, however, has more room for nuance, and the Second Circuit majority in Arar was concerned in large part about the 20 Our dissenting colleague contends that recognizing a Bivens claim here “vaults over this consensus” and “too-casually sidesteps the weight of precedent from other circuits.” Dissent at 82, 88. There is in fact no such consensus to vault over, nor a “casual sidestep.” There is no circuit court decision with which we disagree. The two circuits we have cited addressed the very different situation of alien detainees. The plaintiffs here are U.S. citizens entitled to the full protection of our Constitution. Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 65 diplomatic and foreign policy consequences of hearing Arar’s claims. 585 F.3d at 574; see also Arar, 585 F.3d at 603 (Sack, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (concluding that security and secrecy concerns should not be considered “special factors counseling hesitation,” but should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis employing the state-secrets doctrine). If the U.S. government harms citizens of other nations, they can turn to their home governments to stand up for their rights. These considerations are simply not present in this lawsuit by two U.S. citizens challenging their alleged illegal torture by their own government. In a series of cases, the D.C. Circuit has rejected efforts by aliens to use Bivens to seek relief from U.S. foreign policy and military actions overseas. In Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202 (D.C. Cir. 1985), members of the U.S. Congress and citizens of Nicaragua brought claims, including Bivens claims, against U.S. government officials for their alleged support of forces bearing arms in Nicaragua. In rejecting the obvious invitation to the federal courts to make foreign policy, the court explained: “we think that as a general matter the danger of foreign citizens’ using the courts in situations such as this to obstruct the foreign policy of our government is sufficiently acute that we must leave to Congress the judgment whether a damage remedy should exist.” 770 F.2d at 209. The D.C. Circuit followed that reasoning in Rasul v. Myers, 563 F.3d 527, 530 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Rasul II), where the court relied on the alien citizenship of the plain66 Nos. 10-1687 & 10-2442 tiffs in granting the defendants qualified immunity, finding that “[n]o reasonable government official would have been on notice that [alien] plaintiffs had any Fifth Amendment or Eighth Amendments rights.” Because the Rasul II court found that the defendants were immune from suit, it reached the broader Bivens issue only in a footnote, concluding in the alternative that the plaintiffs’ Bivens claims were foreclosed by “special factors.” Id. at