Court Opinion

ID: 9439146
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:23:23.840284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:11.433464
License: Public Domain

ROGERS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join the court in reversing dismissal of counts two through six, and remanding the case for trial. Our remand order means that any appellate disposition of count one could not resolve the entire case on appeal. Absent such an efficiency ground for review, or any other compelling reason to act now rather than after trial, there is no basis for exercising pendent appellate jurisdiction over Hsia’s challenges to count one. The court therefore need not decide whether and under what conditions a court may exercise pendent jurisdiction over interlocutory appeals in criminal cases that may arise in the future. Consequently, the court’s dictum purporting to bar such jurisdiction over claims raised by defendants is unnecessarily broad.
Hsia’s pendent appellate jurisdiction claim would fail even under the standards applicable to civil cases. Addressing her challenges to count one now would not dispose of the case, see Jungquist v. Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, 115 F.3d 1020, 1026-27 (D.C.Cir.1997), and there is nothing in the record to suggest that her cross-appeal is one of those “rare exceptions” where “substantial considerations of fairness or efficiency” justify exercising pendent jurisdiction. Gilda Marx, Inc. v. Wildwood Exercise, Inc., 85 F.3d 675, 678-79 (D.C.Cir.1996). Our remand of counts two through six demonstrates, moreover, that the issues on cross-appeal are not so “inextricably intertwined” with those of the jurisdictionally proper appeal that “review of the former ... [is] necessary to ensure meaningful review of the latter.” Swint v. Chambers County Com’n, 514 U.S. 35, 51, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995). In short, Hsia has not advanced a compelling reason to review count one before trial.
Hence, the court has no occasion to decide whether exercising pendent appellate jurisdiction over a criminal defendant’s claim may in some circumstances be appropriate. Contrary to the court’s suggestion, the Supreme Court has not foreclosed such jurisdiction. The court relies on dictum from Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 662-63, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977), that it reads to hold by negative implication that pendent appellate jurisdiction is not available over claims by defendants in criminal cases. See opinion at 13. The Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Sioint suggests a less rigid civil-criminal distinction than this court attempts to extract from Abney. First, the Swint Court did not characterize Abney as completely barring pendent appellate review in criminal cases, but rather as rejecting a rule “loosely allowing” such review. See Swint, 514 U.S. at 49-50. Second, in Sivint, a civil case, the Court noted that Abney’s, reasoning applied in both civil and criminal contexts, but went on to permit at least some pendent jurisdiction in civil appeals. See id. This extension of Abney to the civil context does not automatically mean that Swint likewise extends to the criminal context, but suggests that the Abney dictum may not be a sturdy foundation upon which to base a categorical limit to this court’s appellate jurisdiction.
All of the reasons offered by the court to deny pendent jurisdiction in criminal appeals would also justify withholding such review over claims raised by defendants in *528civil appeals, see opinion at 13-14, and yet review is available in civil cases if certain strict standards are satisfied. See, e.g., Swint, 514 U.S. at 46-50; Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 707 n. 41, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945 (1997); Gilda Marx, 85 F.3d at 678. While these standards may apply more stringently in criminal cases, cf. United States v. Rostenkowski, 59 F.3d 1291, 1301 (D.C.Cir.1995), it is not clear that criminal appeals are so fundamentally different from civil appeals that a safety-valve to the finality requirement applies in one but never in the other, nor that the asymmetric scheme posited by the court, categorically foreclosing review only of defendants’ claims, even when the government has also filed an interlocutory appeal, see opinion at 526, necessarily follows.
Accordingly, I would dismiss Hsia’s cross-appeal on the relatively narrow grounds discussed above, and leave broader questions for a case that actually raises them.