Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
Over at The Dispatch, IJ attorney John Wrench invokes General Slushington and makes the case that the White House’s intimidation of law firms is an existential threat to the rule of law. Click here to read it.
- In 2003, Accuracy in Media files a FOIA request with the CIA seeking records related to Vietnam-era POW/MIAs. In 2004, they filed suit after the CIA failed to respond to the request. And in 2025, the D.C. Circuit holds that the CIA still has not shown that it performed an adequate search for the records.
- Iran provided material support for a Taliban attack that killed 30 Americans, including Navy SEAL Kraig Vickers. Vickers’ family sues Iran under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and all recover damages except for Vickers’ youngest daughter, whom the district court regretfully holds is ineligible because she was not born until two months after Vickers’ death. D.C. Circuit: That limitation isn’t in the statute. Iran is on the hook for her damages, too.
- Allegation: Per some investigative journalism, the Catholic Church used donations for people in dire need to instead fund real-estate investments, Hollywood films, etc. Fraud? Unjust enrichment? District court: Could be. Motion to dismiss denied. D.C. Circuit: Which is not a final decision that we can review. The church-autonomy doctrine isn’t a grant immunity from trial and other burdens of litigation, and so says every other circuit to weigh in on this.
- One of the most-read novellas of all time, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, clocks in at, depending on what edition you pick up, around 120 pages. Not to be outdone, the Fourth Circuit (en banc) provides 126 pages of non-precedential concurrences, plus one dissent, in addressing whether geofence warrants are unconstitutional. Oh, there is one precedential sentence in the per curium opinion affirming the district court. Sadly, no one referenced any horror.
- Over the course of 10 years, Louisville, Ky. man is indicted and re-indicted six times on 34 charges including murder, rape, kidnapping—all over the same nexus of events that took place in 2004. (He spends over seven years in prison.) But wait! The state drops the murder charge in 2015 and then all the rest of the charges in 2016. Malicious prosecution? Sixth Circuit: Too late to sue over being framed for murder. You were supposed to file that before you were off the hook for the rest of the charges.
- Allegation: In private group chat with the mayor and cit
Article from Reason.com
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