Legal News

9th Cir. Refuses To Ground Boeing Rendition Lawsuit

By Ashby Jones

A panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco today overturned a lower court ruling that put a halt to a controversial lawsuit concerning extraordinary rendition, the practice of flying suspected terrorists to their home (or other) countries. Click here for the story, from the San Jose Mercury News; here for the AP story.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of five men who say they were subjected to the government’s extraordinary rendition program — that they were kidnapped and sent to overseas prisons where they were tortured. The suit was brought not against the U.S. government, but against a San Jose-based Boeing subsidiary called Jeppesen Dataplan, which was accused of participating in the flights.

In a 26-page ruling, the appellate court found that the federal government failed to document how the lawsuit would reveal state secrets, sending the case back to San Jose U.S. District Judge James Ware for further proceedings. Ware dismissed the lawsuit last year, concluding that litigation over the controversial flight program could prompt the disclosure of CIA secrets.

The Bush administration originally invoked the state secrets privilege in the case. In February, the Obama Administration declined to rebuke the argument. Click here and here for earlier LB coverage; here for the opinion.

“According to the government’s theory, the Judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law,” Judge Michael Daly Hawkins (Arizona State, UVA Law) wrote for the court.

According to the AP story, U.S. Department of Justice Spokesman Charles Miller said “the United States is reviewing the court’s decision.” A spokesman for Boeing declined comment to the Law Blog.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 28, 2009 (boomark / email).