Opinion ID: 4510461
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Award of Summary Judgment to Plaintiffs

Text: On the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment, the district court granted partial judgment to plaintiffs, enjoining the enforcement of the challenged conditions as to them and mandating the release of 2017 Byrne grant funds to plaintiffs. In so ruling, the district court held that the challenged conditions violated the APA in two respects: (1) the Attorney General lacked the statutory authority to impose the conditions, see New York v. Dep’t of Justice, 343 F. Supp. 3d at 22731; and (2) defendants’ failure to consider the conditions’ potential negative ramifications for plaintiffs’ law enforcement efforts rendered the conditions arbitrary and capricious, see id. at 23841. 26 While the district court could have stopped there, it proceeded also to rule on certain of plaintiffs’ constitutional challenges. As to § 1373 in particular, the district court ruled that DOJ could not identify it as an “applicable law” requiring compliance certification under 34 U.S.C. § 10153(a)(5)(D) because, on its face, § 1373 violates the anticommandeering principle of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. See id. at 23137. Further, the district court concluded that, in the absence of statutory authority for the Attorney General to impose the challenged conditions, all three violated the separation of legislative and executive powers mandated by Articles I and II of the Constitution. See id. at 238. Defendants timely appealed.