No Sealing of Opinion Related to Guantanamo Detainee (Now Released to Oman)

From Abdullah v. Trump, decided in March by Judge Emmet Sullivan (D.D.C.), and reaffirmed Sunday (with a comment that “in the nearly four months since the Court gave Mr. Abdullah that opportunity, he has not sought to redact any information”):

On December 31, 2024, this Court denied two motions filed by Mr. Abdullah seeking his immediate release from Guantanamo Bay. The Court posted the Order accompanying the Memorandum Opinion on the public docket but posted the Memorandum Opinion under seal and directed the parties to post a public version on the public docket within fourteen days.

On January 6, 2025, Mr. Abdullah appealed the Court’s denial of his two motions …. On January 7, 2025, the government filed a notice that it had transferred Mr. Abdullah to Oman. The same day, this Court entered an order denying Mr. Abdullah’s Motion for Order Granting Writ of Habeas Corpus as moot ….

On January 28, 2025, [having gotten an extension,] the government filed the redacted public version of the Memorandum Opinion [available here -EV]. Two days later, Mr. Abdullah filed his Motion to Seal in which he asks the Court to permanently seal the Memorandum Opinion ….

Mr. Abdullah’s two main arguments for the Court to seal its Memorandum Opinion are that public release after the Memorandum Opinion became unreviewable as moot would: (1) be an impermissible advisory opinion under Article III of the United States Constitution; and (2) “shred what remains” of Mr. Abdullah’s privacy interests….

Mr. Abdullah confuses the clearly established Article III limits that relate to whether this Court’s Order should be vacated in the D.C. Circuit with this Court’s authority to seal and unseal documents on its docket…. “… [S]ince the district court’s opinion will remain ‘on the books’ even if vacated, albeit without any preclusive effect, future courts will be able to consult its reasoning.” … [T]he Court [also] views the Guantanamo case that the government cites, Rabbani, as highly persuasive. In Rabbani, another judge on this Court considered a situation in which the habeas petitioner before the Court, Mr. Rabbani, raised issues that were similar to those raised by another habeas petitioner, Mr. Dhiab, who sought a preliminary injunction shortly before being released from U.S. custody, mooting Mr. Dhiab’s case. The Court explained that “even if [Mr. Dhiab's'] release subjects [the] Memorandum Opinion [in his case] to vacatur, the persuasiveness of [that opinion's] factual findings and legal reasoning remains intact.” …

Mr. Abdullah … asserts that allowing the Memorandum Opinion to be publicly available may cause confusion, as “[a] publicly available opinion would ordinarily be understood to represent what the law is” and that the Court “should not abet a publication which has no legitimate residual function offsetting its inevitable capacity to mislead.”

This argument fails. First, it is not at all true that a “publicly available opinion” is necessarily understood to “represent what the law is.” It is common knowledge that our judicial system contains levels of review and that a district court opinion is not necessarily the final disposition of a dispute. Even more so here, the docket in this case is clear that Mr. Abdullah appealed the Order to the D.C. Circuit.

Second, in addition to the fact that it would be clear from the docket if the Order is vacated, Mr. Abdullah’s concern that the Memorandum Opinion would be erroneously relied upon is overblown as it has no binding authority on any other court. The most it could do is serve as one Court’s interpretation of the law, not tested on appeal, that other courts could consider as they reach their own determination of any of the legal issues addressed therein….

The Court is sympathetic to Mr. Abdullah’s privacy concerns, especially as he now seeks to rebuild his life following his decades of detention at Guantanamo. However, the government is correct that much of the details about Mr. Abdullah and his detention have been publicly available on the docket in this case for years. Moreover, most of the Court’s Memorandum Opinion focused on Mr. Abdullah’s legal arguments; it rejected his requests for release or interim relief based primarily on the merits of those legal arguments, not, for example, on a determination of his possible risk if released. The Court expressly did not make a determination that Mr. Abdullah’s detention was warranted.

{On the contrary, the Court lamented how Mr. Abdullah’s counsel had not shown a legal basis for the Court to be able to consider the Periodic Review Board’s determination that Mr. Abdullah posed a limited amount of risk to U.S. security such that it recommended he be transferred. Additionally, the Court’s rejection of Mr. Abdullah’s argument that the armed conflict or hostilities in which he was alleged to have engaged had ended was based on his counsel’s interpretation of the law and import of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, not, for example, an assessment of Mr. Abdullah’s specific alleged involvement with any of the entities against which the United States has engaged in hostilities, as has been at issue in other cases.}

Even though the Court takes seriously Mr. Abdullah’s privacy concerns, he has not identified the specific factual information in the Memorandum Opinion that raises such concerns. Nor has he attempted to justify sealing any or all of the Memorandum Opinion based on binding D.C. Circuit precedent that must be considered when weighing privacy interests against public interest in access to information….

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