Case Detail
| Case Title | PUBIEN v. EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv00172 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-01-26 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2018-11-13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge James E. Boasberg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | MICKEY PUBIEN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Opinion/Order [18] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge James Boasberg has ruled that EOUSA properly responded to Mickey Pubien's request for the dates on which a grand jury was impaneled by informing him that it could find no records. Pubien filed a request in 2016 for records concerning the date on which a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida was impaneled and the date on which the grand jury expired. The agency told Pubien that the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida no longer had that information because it had been destroyed pursuant to its records retention schedule. However, the court clerk was able to furnish the dates on which the grand jury was impaneled and expired. That record was disclosed to Pubien with redactions under Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy) and Exemption 7(C) (invasion of privacy concerning law enforcement records). Pubien then submitted a second request asking for all the dates on which the grand jury was in session. Once again, the agency found that it had no responsive records beyond the record provided by the court clerk. The clerk's record was disclosed again with the same redactions. Pubien filed suit, arguing that the search was inadequate and that the exemptions were improper. Pubien argued the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida had failed to ask other personnel who might have knowledge of the dates. But Boasberg indicated that "the U.S. Attorney's Office does not assert in this case that it never had such records. Rather, it represents only that any of 'the records that might have related [to Pubien's request]. . .have been destroyed in accordance with the [office's] records retention schedule.' The Government is not required to produce documents that no longer exist or to retain indefinitely the records it has." Pubien also faulted the agency for failing to address the more specific dates in his second request. Here, Boasberg pointed out that "that the Memo does not contain the information Plaintiff requested is true, but that is because more specific records do not exist. EOUSA is clear, moreover, that it did undertake an additional, renewed search in response to Plaintiff's [second] request." Boasberg rejected the agency's claim that Exemption 7(C) applied. He noted that "it strains credulity to suggest that the information compiled about grand jury dates over a decade after it was impaneled and discharged â€" and in response to a FOIA request â€" was assembled for law enforcement purposes. Indeed, the Memo was created only for FOIA purposes." However, he found that Exemption 6 applied because the privacy interests of the individuals outweighed any public interest in disclosure. Pubien argued that because he had found a document online confirming the existence of the grand jury the privacy exemptions did not apply. Calling this a "non sequitur," Boasberg explained that "that some material related to a grand jury is public does not imply that the names of the staff members who exchanged the Memo are also public."
Issues: Adequacy - Search | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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