Opinion ID: 3062090
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Order of Battle”

Text: In Hasan II, we asked the district court to determine: (1) whether, at the time of the grand jury hearings, Mr. Hasan spoke only or primarily a language other than the English language; and (2) if Hasan’s language was other than English, to determine whether the lack of an interpreter inhibited his -10- comprehension or communication to such an extent as to have made the grand jury hearings fundamentally unfair. 609 F.3d at 1129. While the remand directed a sequential approach, the opinion itself did not explicitly require a specific “order of battle” in resolving the questions on remand. More specifically, we gave the following two-step directions: [Step One] First the district court should follow the blueprint laid out in Hasan I and undertake a comparative analysis to identify Mr. Hasan’s primary language at the time of the grand jury proceedings. Id. at 1131. Then, if this review leads to a conclusion Hasan spoke primarily English, the court’s analysis would end, since he would not be entitled to relief under the CIA. The court would move to step two if Hasan’s primary language was other than English: [Step Two] If the district court concludes that Mr. Hasan spoke primarily Somali, then it should proceed to the next step and determine whether, in light of this determination, Mr. Hasan was inhibited in his ability to comprehend and communicate at the grand jury proceedings to such an extent as to have been fundamentally unfair. Id. (emphasis added). Hasan argues that this directive was never followed because the district court failed to either (1) draw a conclusion at all under the first step, or (2) assume arguendo that Hasan did not primarily speak English at step one before moving on to the second step of the analysis. -11- We disagree with this interpretation of the district court’s order. In its order, the court summarized its review of the entire record before concluding that “no evidence was ever presented to establish that Mr. Hasan was proficient in any language.” R., Vol. I at 388 (emphasis in original). The court continued: “since this Court has no way of knowing from the record if the Defendant was actually fluent in Somali[], or Arabic for that matter, this Court cannot say, at the time of the grand jury, that the Defendant’s ‘comparative ability’ to speak Somali was or was not better than his ability to speak English.” Id. at 389. 2 But “based upon the entire record in this case, [] the Defendant was clearly capable of communicating in English at the time of the grand jury proceedings.” Id. Based exclusively on the text of the district court’s opinion, it appears Hasan is correct that the district court failed to either (1) answer definitively the first step of the inquiry, or (2) explicitly assume an appropriate answer before proceeding to the fundamental fairness inquiry. But, as the government argues, “merely by moving onto the second step at all, the district court implicitly accepted that the first step had been met.” Aple. Br. at 25. The government 2 We concluded in Hasan I that “Mr. Hasan is a native Somali speaker and, at the time he entered the country, communicated with governmental officials exclusively through an interpreter.” 526 F.3d at 656. Accordingly, we construe the district court’s finding narrowly—meaning it is possible that, at the time of the grand jury inquiry, Hasan had lost his fluency in his native tongue since the district court was unable to assess his comparative ability. But nonetheless, this finding by the district court is not essential to our holding since we find the second step of the test to be dispositive. -12- further notes that, in this appeal, Hasan “merely challenges the district court’s failure to state that it was assuming that the first step was met before moving on to the second step . . . . the only question before the Court is whether the district court in fact assumed arguendo that Hasan spoke primarily Somali in proceeding to the second step of the CIA analysis.” Id. at 26. There was no error in the district court’s determination. No talismanic quality attaches to a rigid order of battle. By moving on to the second step, the district court was clearly signaling that it concluded either Hasan spoke a primary language other than English or assumed he did. This is easily seen by considering the Hasan II directive that: “[i]f the court concludes that Mr. Hasan spoke primarily English, its analysis should come to an end.” 609 F.3d at 1131. Since the court moved on to the next step, we can only conclude the court found that Hasan did not primarily speak English, or at least assumed that he did not for purposes of analysis. See also Hasan I, 526 F.3d at 666 (describing the two-step inquiry and concluding that “of course either [step] may be dispositive if not resolved in Mr. Hasan’s favor”). Furthermore, there is no reason the district court must use specific language to signal its transition to the next step. In the qualified immunity context, for example, the Supreme Court has “retired [the] ‘rigid order of battle’ approach, instead affording appellate courts discretion to decide ‘which of the two prongs of the . . . analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the -13- particular case at hand.’” Riggins v. Goodman, 572 F.3d 1101, 1107–08 (10th Cir. 2009) (quoting Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 234–36 (2009)); see also Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685–86 (1984) (allowing ineffective assistance of counsel challenges to be disposed of based on either prong of a twoprong test). We see no reason why a different approach should be required in this context. Accordingly, while it would have been helpful for the district court to explicitly denote that it was moving past step one—specifically in light of the multiple appeals in this case—its failure to explicitly state so was not legal error.