Opinion ID: 185451
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: When process is due

Text: 47 As petitioners argue, the fundamental norm of due process clause jurisprudence requires that before the government can constitutionally deprive a person of the protected liberty or property interest, it must afford him notice and hearing. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 334-35 (1976). Therefore, petitioners argue that the Secretary was obligated to give them notice of her intent to make the declarations of terrorist status and previous nature, and afford them the opportunity to respond to the evidence upon which she proposed to make those declarations and to be heard on the proper resolution of the questions. Indeed, [the Supreme] Court consistently has held that some form of hearing is required before an individual is finally deprived of a property interest. Id. at 333. 48 At the same time, the Supreme Court has made clear that [i]t is by now well established that ' due process unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.'  Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924, 930 (1997) (quoting Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 895 (1961)). Otherwise put, due process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481 (1972). Citing Homar, and Morrissey, inter alia, the United States contends that since due process consists only of that process which is due under the circumstances, even given our holding that petitioners are protected by the due process clause, they are not due any procedural protection that they have not already received. 49 When analyzing the petitioners' claims, and the government's defenses, we are mindful that two distinct questions remain for us to determine. We have dispensed with the issue as to whether petitioners are entitled to due process; the questions remaining for us are what due process, and when. That is, to what procedural devices must the petitioners have access in order to protect their interests against the deprivations worked by the statute, and must that access be afforded before the Secretary's declaration, or is it sufficient under the circumstances that such access be available postdeprivation? The government rightly reminds us that the Supreme Court established in Mathews v. Eldridge and indeed even before that decision, 50 that identification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: first, the private interests that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest of the procedure used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirements would entail. 51 424 U.S. at 335 (citing Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 263-71 (1970)). Unlike the advocates before us, we do not have the luxury of blurring the question of what and when. We must determine what process is sufficient to afford petitioners the protection of the Fifth Amendment, and when--in terms of pre-deprivation or post-deprivation--that process must be available. 52 The Secretary reviews the three elements of the balancing inquiry set forth in Mathews to conclude that the balancing tips decidedly in favor of the government and justifies postponing review until after the Secretary's designation. Brief of the Secretary at 46. However, while we acknowledge that the factors set forth, being drawn as they are from the Supreme Court case, are necessarily the right ones, we must note that the government has made little effort to tie the factors to the question of when as opposed to what due process is to be afforded. As to the private interest, the government compares the interests asserted by petitioners in this case with that asserted in United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U.S. 43 (1993). In that case, the Supreme Court considered whether, in the absence of exigent circumstances, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government in a civil forfeiture case from seizing real property without first affording the owner notice and an opportunity to be heard. The Court expressly held that it does. Id. at 46. The government argues from the facts of James Daniel Good Real Property that the importance of the real estate forfeited in that case dwarfs the importance of the interests of an organization in, for example, a bank account, and concludes that somehow that case supports the proposition that the interest to be protected here is not sufficiently important to warrant due process. 53 This strikes us as a non sequitur. The fact that the Supreme Court has held that the Fifth Amendment provides protection for a highly important property interest is at most neutral on the question of whether that Amendment provides protection to an arguably less important property interest, or even a concededly less important one. If anything, the decision would seem to weigh in favor of affording due process protection to the interest asserted by petitioners--it being a property interest as was the interest before the Supreme Court in James Daniel Good Real Property. 54 As to the second factor, that is, the risk of erroneous deprivation, the Secretary again offers an analysis of questionable relevance. The government reminds us that the Secretary must, under the statute, consult with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Treasury before designating a foreign terrorist organization, 8 U.S.C. 1189(c)(4), and must notify congressional leaders seven days before designating such an organization, id. 1189(a)(2)(A). While we understand the Secretary's point that more heads are likely to reach a sounder result, the application of that facially commonsensical notion to due process questions is, to put it charitably, unclear. The United States functions with a unitary executive, created in Article II of the Constitution and constrained by the Fifth Amendment from depriving anyone protected by that Amendment of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The involvement of more than one of the servants of that unitary executive in commencing a deprivation does not create an apparent substitute for the notice requirement inherent in the constitutional norm. Neither is it apparent how notice by the Article II branch of government to representatives of the Article I branch can substitute for notice to the person deprived. Again, the government has offered nothing that apparently weighs in favor of a post-deprivational as opposed to predeprivational compliance with due process requirements of the Constitution. 55 As to the third Mathews v. Eldridge factor--the government's interest, including the function involved in the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail, 424 U.S. at 319--the Secretary rightly reminds us that no governmental interest is more compelling than the security of the nation. Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 307 (1981). It is on this very point that the Secretary most clearly has failed to distinguish between the what of the Due Process Clause and the when. Certainly the United States enjoys a privilege in classified information affecting national security so strong that even a criminal defendant to whose defense such information is relevant cannot pierce that privilege absent a specific showing of materiality. United States v. Yunis, 867 F.2d 617, 623-24 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (applying the Classified Information Procedure Act, 18 U.S.C. App. 1-16 (1982)). As we will discuss further infra, that strong interest of the government clearly affects the nature--the what of the due process which must be afforded petitioners. It is not immediately apparent how that affects the when of the process--that is, whether due process may be effectively provided post-deprivation as opposed to pre-deprivation. 56 In support of the argument that the foreign-policy/nationalsecurity nature of the evidence supports the constitutional adequacy of a post-deprivation remedy, the Secretary offers our decision in Palestine Information Office v. Shultz, 853 F.2d 932 (D.C. Cir. 1988). The Secretary is correct that in that case, we held that where the Secretary of State had ordered the closing of an office (arguably, a foreign ministry) in this country in response to and in an attempt to curb alleged terrorist activities, the burden on the government of requiring a hearing before the closing of [the] foreign mission was sufficient to warrant dispensing with any otherwise available pre-deprivation hearing. Id. at 942. We did so recognizing the  'changeable and explosive nature of contemporary international relations, and the fact that the executive is immediately privy to information which cannot be swiftly presented to, evaluated by, and acted upon by the legislature....'  Id. at 943 (quoting Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1, 17 (1965)). 57 We remain committed to, and indeed bound by, that same reasoning. It is simply not the case, however, that the Secretary has shown how affording the organizations whatever due process they are due before their designation as foreign terrorist organizations and the resulting deprivation of right would interfere with the Secretary's duty to carry out foreign policy. 58 To oversimplify, assume the Secretary gives notice to one of the entities that: 59 We are considering designating you as a foreign terrorist organization, and in addition to classified information, we will be using the following summarized administrative record. You have the right to come forward with any other evidence you may have that you are not a foreign terrorist organization. 60 It is not immediately apparent how the foreign policy goals of the government in general and the Secretary in particular would be inherently impaired by that notice. It is particularly difficult to discern how such a notice could interfere with the Secretary's legitimate goals were it presented to an entity such as the PMOI concerning its redesignation. We recognize, as we have recognized before, that items of classified information which do not appear dangerous or perhaps even important to judges might make all too much sense to a foreign counterintelligence specialist who could learn much about this nation's intelligence-gathering capabilities from what these documents revealed about sources and methods. Yunis, 867 F.2d at 623. We extend that recognition to the possibility that alerting a previously undesignated organization to the impending designation as a foreign terrorist organization might work harm to this county's foreign policy goals in ways that the court would not immediately perceive. We therefore wish to make plain that we do not foreclose the possibility of the Secretary, in an appropriate case, demonstrating the necessity of withholding all notice and all opportunity to present evidence until the designation is already made. The difficulty with that in the present case is that the Secretary has made no attempt at such a showing. 61 We therefore hold that the Secretary must afford the limited due process available to the putative foreign terrorist organization prior to the deprivation worked by designating that entity as such with its attendant consequences, unless he can make a showing of particularized need. 62