Habeas Corpus Res. Ctr. v. USDOJ, No. 14-16928 (9th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs, two governmental organizations that provide legal representation to capital defendants and prisoners, filed suit raising numerous challenges to the Attorney General's regulations implementing the certification procedure for fast-tracking federal habeas cases for capital prisoners. On summary judgment, the district court sustained most of plaintiffs’ challenges, found the regulations arbitrary or capricious in several respects, and enjoined the regulations from going into effect. The court vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss because plaintiffs did not have standing to bring this action. The court declined plaintiffs’ request for a limited remand to allow their clients an opportunity to intervene. The court stated that the Attorney General has not yet made any certification decisions, and, thus, challenges to the procedures and criteria set forth in the regulations are not yet ripe for review.
Court Description: Standing/Ripeness. The panel vacated the district court’s decision on summary judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss an action raising challenges to the Attorney General’s 2013 regulations implementing a procedure for certifying a state’s capital-counsel mechanisms for the fast-tracking of capital prisoners’ federal habeas cases. The panel held that the plaintiffs, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center and the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Arizona, two governmental organizations that provide legal representation to capital defendants and prisoners, did not have standing to bring this action based on their theory of direct injury. Because the plaintiffs have not suffered a legally cognizable injury as a result of the promulgations of the final regulations, the panel did not need to address further their contentions that they had standing to challenge procedural errors in the notice-and- comment-rulemaking process and third-party standing on behalf of their clients. The panel declined the plaintiffs’ request for a limited remand to allow their clients an opportunity to intervene. The panel wrote that the Attorney General has not yet made any certification decisions, and, thus, challenges to the procedures and criteria set forth in the regulations are not ripe for review. HABEAS CORPUS RES. CTR. V. USDOJ 3
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.