Court Opinion

ID: 9484243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:45:10.235426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:06.597439
License: Public Domain

BECKWITH, District Judge,
concurring.
I.
I concur with Judge Nelson’s results and his reasoning. I write separately, because I am convinced that more compelling grounds exist for exempting the Department of Justice’s Hoffa file than that which was the basis of the district court’s decision.
In the Llewellyn declaration, the Department of Justice cited at least three exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act in addition to exemption 7(A) of 5 U.S.C. § 522(b). The first such exemption is 7(C), the exemption for information, the disclosure of which “could reasonably be expected to be an unwanted invasion of personal privacy.” The second is exemption 7(D) for information that “could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source.” The third such exemption is 7(E), the exemption for information that “would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions ... [when] such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.”
Apparently, the trial court considered each of the cited exemptions. Nevertheless, that court rested its decision entirely on exemption 7(A), concluding that the Department of Justice was engaged in an ongoing investigation directed toward the potential institution of criminal proceedings. Judge Nelson has properly confined his analysis to a review of the trial court’s decision based upon exemption 7(A). I agree that the contents of the Moody file sufficiently support the trial court’s conclusion that the contents of the Hoffa file are exempt under 7(A). The question is a close one, however, as is illustrated by the dissent.
My review of the Moody file suggests that each of the four exemptions discussed above supports the nondisclosure of some or all of the documents in the Hoffa file. Had the district court based its decision on all four exemptions, the correctness of the decision would have been beyond question and our review would have been much simpler.
II.
My review of the Moody file further suggests that the various exemptions are so intertwined, overlapping, and inextricable that virtually nothing from the Hoffa file could be revealed without jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation, confidential source identity, various individuals’ privacy, and law enforcement investigative techniques. For this reason, the trial court could not have ordered a Vaughn index without risking inadvertent release of exempt and sensitive information.
There being no constitutional outline for the manner in which a trial court must approach its analysis of a government claim of exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, it cannot be said that the trial court in this instance failed to independently, adequately, and objectively assess the validity of the government’s claim. The trial court was *1435under no obligation to follow Plaintiffs proffered procedure when another effective option was available. For that reason, I cannot agree with the dissent’s criticism of the trial court’s failure to order the production of an index.