Robinson v. Sessions ( 2018 )


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  •     17-1427-cv
    Robinson v. Sessions
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
    SUMMARY ORDER
    RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED
    ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE
    PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A
    DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC
    DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A
    COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
    At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals
    for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall
    United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
    New York, on the 18th day of January, two thousand eighteen.
    PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS,
    REENA RAGGI,
    PETER W. HALL,
    Circuit Judges.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -X
    William Robinson, Stephen J.
    Aldstadt, David Bardascini, Michael
    Carpinelli, George Curbelo, Jr.,
    Wayne Denn, William R. Fox, Sr., Don
    Hey, Garry Edward Hoffman, Raymond
    Kosorek, Michael R. Kubow, Thomas J.
    Lorey, Thomas A. Marotta, Michael
    Mastrogiovanni, Kenneth E. Mathison,
    Terrence J. McCulley, Jim Nowotny,
    John E. Prendergast, Harold W.
    Schroeder, Edward J. Stokes, John W.
    Wallace, Leslie H. Wilson,
    Christopher S. Zaleski, Mattie D.
    Zarpentine, Tim Flaherty, Doug
    Negley, Jacob Palmateer, Shooters
    Committee for Political Education,
    New York Revolution, Gun Rights
    Across America – New York, NY2A.org,
    1
    Fulton County-NY Oath Keepers, and
    all those other individuals who are
    similarly situated,
    Plaintiffs-Appellants,
    Larry Pratt, Gun Owners of America,
    Inc.,
    Plaintiffs,
    -v.-                              17-1427-cv
    Jefferson B. Sessions III, ATTORNEY
    GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, in his
    official and individual capacities,
    Andrew McCabe, ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE
    FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS, in
    his official and individual
    capacities, Christopher M. Piehota,
    DIRECTOR OF THE TERRORIST SCREENING
    CENTER, in his official and individual
    capacities, Byron Todd Jones, ACTING
    DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL,
    TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES, in
    his official and individual
    capacities,
    Defendants-Appellees.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -X
    FOR APPELLANT:             PALOMA A. CAPANNA, Esq., Webster,
    New York.
    FOR APPELLEES:             PATRICK G. NEMEROFF for Chad A.
    Readler, Acting Assistant
    Attorney General (Michael S.
    Raab, Attorneys, Appellate Staff
    Civil Division, on the brief),
    Washington, D.C.
    2
    Appeal from a judgment of the United States District
    Court for the Western District of New York (Geraci, J.).
    UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED
    AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court be
    AFFIRMED.
    William Robinson and his co-plaintiffs appeal from the
    judgment of the United States District Court for the
    Western District of New York dismissing their claim that
    various United States law enforcement agencies jeopardize
    the constitutional rights of prospective American gun
    owners by mishandling their personal information in the
    course of conducting routine background checks. We assume
    the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the
    procedural history, and the issues presented for review.
    The appellants are a collection of individuals and
    organizations committed to Second Amendment advocacy. They
    allege that the Government violates First, Second, Fourth,
    Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment protections, along with the
    Administrative Procedure Act, 
    5 U.S.C. § 705
    , when the
    Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”)
    subjects potential firearm purchasers to background checks
    that cross-reference their personal information with the
    Terrorist Screening Database (“TSDB”), a master watchlist
    of individuals known or suspected of having terrorist ties.
    They frame the alleged screening practices as an unlawful
    expansion of The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the
    “Brady Act”), Pub. L. No. 103-159, 
    107 Stat. 1536
     (1993),
    which created the National Instant Criminal Background
    Check System (“NICS Background Check”) to prevent the
    transfer of firearms to individuals barred from firearm
    possession by federal or state law. 
    18 U.S.C. §§ 922
    (t),(g),(n).
    All persons attempting to purchase firearms must
    undergo an NICS Background Check. See 
    18 U.S.C. §§ 922
    (t),
    923(a). As part of that procedure, prospective customers
    must complete a firearms transaction record known as the
    ATF Form 4473, which elicits personal information and
    propounds questions to certify that the customer is
    qualified to possess a firearm under the enumerated Brady
    Act factors. 
    27 C.F.R. § 478.124
    ; 
    28 C.F.R. § 25.7
    (a); 18
    
    3 U.S.C. § 922
    (g)(1)-(9),(n) (setting forth ten conditions
    that render an individual ineligible to purchase a
    firearm). The Form 4473 information is then compared
    against databases from multiple agencies, including the
    Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime
    Information Center (“NCIC”). See 
    28 C.F.R. § 25.6
    (c)(1)(iii). Since 2004, the NCIC has incorporated
    data from the TSDB.1 See J. App’x at 271-72. When the
    background check produces a “match” with any NCIC records,
    including those that may also reside in the TSDB, the
    application is delayed while NICS agents research the
    transaction to determine whether the individual would be
    prohibited by law from receiving or possessing a firearm.
    See 
    28 C.F.R. § 25.6
    (c)(1)(iv)(B). If the agent confirms
    that the customer fits one of the disqualifying conditions
    spelled out in 
    18 U.S.C. §§ 922
    (g),(n), the application is
    denied; if no prohibiting information is discovered (or
    three business days go by without a response), the sale
    proceeds. 
    Id.
     § 25.6(c)(1)(iv)(B)-(C).
    Appellants allege that this so-called “NICS-to-TSDB
    connection” procedure exceeds the agency’s statutory
    authority and “amounts to domestic spying.” Appellant’s
    Br. at 25. The individual appellants allege that the
    defendants’ conduct caused them to suffer a particularized
    constitutional deprivation because they each provided
    information on Form 4473s in the course of routine firearm
    purchases and would like to continue making such purchases
    in the future. The appellants do not allege, however, that
    they were denied firearms or they suffered delay in
    purchase; they do not claim to be listed in the TSDB; nor
    do they contend that any of their information has been
    compiled or retained beyond the screening period in
    violation of law. See 
    18 U.S.C. § 922
    (t)(2)(C); 
    28 CFR § 25.9
    (b)(1). The district court therefore concluded that
    “Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that they have been, or
    will be, personally injured by the challenged conduct” and
    1The Brady Act provides that “the Attorney General may
    secure directly from any department or agency of the United
    States such information on persons for whom receipt of a
    firearm would violate [
    18 U.S.C. §§ 922
    (t),(n)] or State
    law.” Pub. L. No. 103-159, § 103(e)(1).
    4
    dismissed the complaint for lack of standing. Robinson v.
    Sessions, 
    260 F. Supp. 3d 264
    , 274 (W.D.N.Y. 2017).
    “The existence of standing is a question of law that we
    review de novo.” Shain v. Ellison, 
    356 F.3d 211
    , 214 (2d
    Cir. 2004). To have standing, a party must allege “such a
    personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to
    ensure that the dispute sought to be adjudicated will be
    presented in an adversary context and in a form
    historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution.”
    Sierra Club v. Morton, 
    405 U.S. 727
    , 732 (1972) (internal
    citation and quotation marks omitted). The “irreducible
    constitutional minimum of standing” requires that “the
    plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact—an invasion
    of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and
    particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural
    or hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 
    504 U.S. 555
    , 560 (1992) (internal citations and quotation marks
    omitted). The “injury in fact” standing requirement
    “applies with special force” where, as here, “a plaintiff
    files suit to require an executive agency to ‘follow the
    law’; at that point, the citizen must prove that he ‘has
    sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining a
    direct injury as a result of that [challenged] action and
    it is not sufficient that he has merely a general interest
    common to all members of the public.’” Spokeo, Inc. v.
    Robins, 
    136 S. Ct. 1540
    , 1552 (2016) (quoting Ex parte
    Levitt, 
    302 U.S. 633
    , 634 (1937) (per curiam)); see also
    Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 
    555 U.S. 488
    , 490, 496-97
    (2009) (requiring a “concrete interest” affected by the
    challenged conduct for standing to vindicate a procedural
    right).
    The appellants fail to identify a direct injury in fact
    that they have sustained or will sustain as a result of the
    alleged Government conduct. They discuss at length why (in
    their view) the inclusion of TSDB data in the NICS
    Background Check is unauthorized, wrong, and even
    unconstitutional. But we do not “entertain citizen suits
    to vindicate the public’s nonconcrete interest in the
    proper administration of the laws.” Lujan, 
    504 U.S. at 581
    (Kennedy, J. concurring); accord Spokeo, 
    136 S. Ct. at 1549
    (“Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in
    the context of a statutory violation.”). The appellants do
    5
    not explain how they themselves have been subjected to any
    harm by the challenged conduct, such as the deprivation of
    a Second Amendment right to bear arms or a Fourth Amendment
    protection against unreasonable searches or breach of
    privacy.2 See Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 
    568 U.S. 398
    ,
    411 (2013)(holding that plaintiffs unable to allege that
    their communications were actually monitored under
    challenged statute lacked standing); see also Am. Civil
    Liberties Union v. Nat’l Sec. Agency, 
    493 F.3d 644
    , 665-66,
    673 (6th Cir. 2007)(opinion of Batchelder, J.).3
    2 For the same reason, we reject the appellants’ assertion
    that they will suffer a cognizable injury in fact because
    NICS forces them to “choose” between their Second and First
    or Fourth Amendment rights. This is, in effect, an
    argument that the appellants are at risk of suffering the
    same constitutional harms alleged here in the future.
    Since the appellants fail to demonstrate that they have
    been or will imminently be subject to the challenged
    conduct, their unsubstantiated fears of a speculative harm
    or a ‘chill’ on Second Amendment activity are insufficient
    to confer standing. See Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 
    568 U.S. 398
    , 416 (2013); Laird v. Tatum, 
    408 U.S. 1
    , 13-14
    (1972) (“Allegations of a subjective ‘chill’ are not an
    adequate substitute for a claim of specific present
    objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.”).
    3 Appellants argue that they have been suffering injury
    because the Government has exceeded its statutory authority
    and incorporated the TSDB into the NICS Background Check.
    In appellants’ view, comparing their Form 4473 information
    against a database incorporating the TSDB—standing alone—is
    a cognizable injury. Appellants’ theory of harm, however,
    is incongruous. The Brady Act provides the Government with
    the authority to access any search criteria that will
    enable it to determine whether a prospective purchaser is
    prohibited by the Gun Control Act from purchasing a
    firearm. See Brady Act, Pub. L. No. 103-159, § 103(e)(1),
    
    107 Stat. 1536
    , 1542 (1993). Incorporating the TSDB into
    the NICS Background Check protocol is merely one method
    that the Government may use to determine whether a
    prospective purchaser possesses a disqualifying attribute.
    Appellants therefore fail to identify how the Government’s
    search procedure causes them injury. See Bauer v. Veneman,
    
    352 F.3d 625
    , 636-37 (2d Cir. 2003) (“While the standard
    6
    There is no evidence that any of these appellants were
    unable to purchase a firearm, were delayed in purchasing a
    firearm, or were listed on the TSDB such that their
    information was allegedly compromised.4 At most, the
    complaint articulates “a highly attenuated chain of
    possibilities” that could, in combination with a number of
    unpled facts, perpetrate the alleged constitutional harm.
    Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 
    568 U.S. 398
    , 410 (2013); see
    also Summers, 
    555 U.S. at 495-96
    . The standing of the
    appellants cannot be inferred from the speculative theory
    that were they to appear on the TSDB, their Form 4473
    information might cross-reference to a file on the NCIC,
    which could result in a delay or denial in their
    transaction. See Clapper, 
    568 U.S. at 413-14
     (declining to
    endorse a standing theory requiring a chain of
    speculation).
    The appellants also argue that they are harmed by the
    perceived stigma of the association of gun owners with
    terrorists. They posit that the inclusion of a TSDB file
    in one of the databases cross-referenced by the NICS
    Background Check amounts to labeling all gun owners as
    terrorists, and thereby creates a direct reputational
    injury. See Allen v. Wright, 
    468 U.S. 737
    , 754-55 (1984)
    (stating that injury premised on stigma “accords a basis
    for standing only to those persons who are personally
    denied equal treatment by the challenged discriminatory
    conduct”), abrogated in part on other grounds by Lexmark
    Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 
    134 S. Ct. 1377
     (2014).
    for reviewing standing at the pleading stage is lenient, a
    plaintiff cannot rely solely on conclusory allegations of
    injury or ask the court to draw unwarranted inferences in
    order to find standing.”).
    4 The individual appellants are joined by several non-profit
    corporations and unincorporated associations. Since the
    organizational appellants’ standing can only be sustained
    as an extension of the standing of individual members,
    their claims must also fail. See Sierra Club, 
    405 U.S. at 733-34
    .
    7
    As the Government points out, this argument is facially
    incoherent as it suggests that the (unchallenged) criminal
    background checks done under the Brady Act brand all gun
    owners as felons or sexual miscreants. More importantly, a
    valid theory of stigmatizing injury rests on discriminatory
    conduct within a defined class of persons, not an “abstract
    stigmatic injury” affecting all gun owners. In re U.S.
    Catholic Conference (USCC), 
    885 F.2d 1020
    , 1025 (2d Cir.
    1989) (quoting Allen, 
    468 U.S. at 755-56
    ). Like the
    plaintiff clergy in In re U.S. Catholic Conference, the
    appellants’ “self-perceived ‘stigma’ does not amount to a
    particularized injury in fact” because they “have neither
    been personally denied equal treatment under the law nor in
    any way prosecuted by” any government agency. Id. at 1026.
    For the foregoing reasons, and finding no merit in
    Robinson’s other arguments, we hereby AFFIRM the judgment
    of the district court.
    FOR THE COURT:
    CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK
    8