Nothing to see here

Interesting timing and parallel to Wilson v. Libby ruling yesterday (0.00 / 0)

DC Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson's civil complaint, in its entirety, in a 2-1 decision yesterday.  David Sentelle (appointed by Reagan) wrote the opinion, Karen LeCraft Henderson (appointed by H-Dubya) concurred and Judith Rogers (appointed by Clinton) dissented.

As far as I can tell from reading the opinion, they built brick walls across jurisprudential streets designed to get us from alleged violations of constitutional rights to remedies.  And the Wilsons' claims ran smack into those walls.  But Sentelle (and the district court before him) had to build fast, kind of like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  So the courts can't even hear the basis of the Wilsons' claims.  

The Wilsons sued, in part, under the Privacy Act.  

Because the Court has held that the Privacy Act is a comprehensive remedial scheme, and because the Supreme Court has held that the existence of a comprehensive remedial scheme precludes implication of Bivens (damages claims for constitutional violations) remedies even where the scheme does not provide full relief, the district court concluded that it could not imply a Bivens remedy here. . . . It is true that the Wilsons cannot obtain complete relief under the Privacy Act because the Act exempts the Offices of the President and the Vice President from its coverage.

But too bad, case dismissed.  Huh?  Brick wall - smack.  They do say the Wilsons can try a tort claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act.  But guess what?  The US intervened in the case as a defendant, and an employee has a rebuttable presumption of absolute immunity from a lawsuit that the US is to be substituted as the defendant.  Brick wall - smack.  

Nothing to see here, as well.

At least as far as the DC circuit goes, with the notable exception of Judge Rogers, remedies for civil rights violations, or even a forum to hear the allegations, are unavailable not only to poor or Islamic people, but to anyone claiming a violation of constitutional rights by an employee of the federal government.  Quite interesting.

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by: Bob Gentry @ Wed Aug 13, 2008 at 16:18:41 PM UTC