Court Opinion

ID: 9458957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:06:26.197312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:57.708010
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring:
When this case was last before us, Veterans of Abraham Lincoln Brigade v. Attorney General, 133 U.S.App.D.C. 222, 409 F.2d 1139 (1969), Judge Pretty-man, writing for the majority, had ordered a remand “for hearing on certain phases” of the appellants’ claim. I dissented, firmly of the opinion that the door then was being opened to permit, on constitutional grounds, a long-belated attack upon the power of the Executive. My dissent there recited language posed by appellants themselves on brief as they challenged their having been listed. I felt that their long delay in seeking such relief should bar further consideration of the grounds relied upon by the appellants. Neither then nor now did I reach issues as to the constitutionality of Executive action, first taken in 1947 with the issuance of President Truman’s Executive Order 9835, later revoked and replaced by President Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10540.
Instead, intervening developments point the direction we may properly take here. Judge Kaufman has correctly pointed out that we directed the District Court to remand the case “to the Attorney *446General of the United States for further proceedings in accordance with the opinion of the Court of Appeals dated February 14, 1969.” We find that the Attorney General took no steps to accord with the terms of the majority opinion. Instead, he adopted the device of retaining the listing of the appellants up to April 20, 1966 which date had been fixed pursuant to the joint motion of the Veterans and the Attorney General consequent upon the Supreme Court’s opinion in Brigade Veterans v. SACB, 380 U.S. 513, 85 S.Ct. 1153, 14 L.Ed.2d 46 (1965). He so acted without notice to the appellants of his intended ex parte amendment.1 The appellants were accorded no hearing respecting that change.
Questioned during argument of the instant case respecting the failure to comply fully with the terms of Judge Pret-tyman’s order of remand, Government counsel found himself compelled to concede that the issues respecting designation and a continued listing of the Veterans could have been resolved only on the available evidence as of 1970. We were informed, “It probably would have been impossible to establish a basis for a listing.” Under the circumstances I believe this business has gone far enough and this is the time to end it.2 Judge Kaufman has made crystal clear the course of events involved in this litigation.
I thus join my colleagues in reversing the judgment of the District Court presently under scrutiny. I agree that the District Court should now be directed forthwith to issue an appropriate order requiring the Attorney General to delist the appellant organizations.

. As to the scope of the action this Court had contemplated, see Industrial Workers of World v. Clark, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 165, 385 F.2d 687 (1967), cert. denied 390 U.S. 948, 88 S.Ct. 1036, 19 L.Ed.2d 1138 (1968).

. Compare Brigade Veterans v. SACB, 380 U.S. 513, 85 S.Ct. 1153, 14 L.Ed.2d 46 (1965) where the Supreme Court found the “stale record” insufficient to justify further inquiry into constitutional questions. Here the Attorney General would have us assume that his amendment of the listing might be supported on the record as it stood up to April 20, 1966.