Case Detail
| Case Title | Lucaj v. United States Department of Justice, et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | Eastern District of Michigan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Flint | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 4:2014cv12635 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2014-07-03 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2016-01-27 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | District Judge Terrence G. Berg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | Doda Lucaj | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Doda Lucaj, an Albanian-American residing in Michigan, was arrested in Vienna in 2006 and allegedly illegally extradited to Montenegro, where he underwent a ten-month trial. He was apparently questioned by FBI agents in Vienna. To find out more about his arrest and U.S. involvement, Lucaj submitted a FOIA request to the FBI for records concerning his questioning by the FBI in Vienna. The agency acknowledged receipt of his request but after the agency failed to respond further, Lucaj filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | United States Federal Bureau of Investigation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | United States Department of Justice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | Sixth Circuit 16-1381 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Opinion/Order [26] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in Michigan has ruled that the Department of Justice properly withheld records pertaining to a request for assistance from the U.S. Office of International Affairs to the Central Authority of Austria and a second foreign government for information about why Austria arrested Doda Lucaj and subsequently extradited him to Montenegro, where he was convicted and imprisoned for four years. Lucaj, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Albania, was arrested in Vienna in 2006 and sent to Montenegro. Lucaj requested records about his arrest and conviction from the Justice Department. The agency located nearly 1500 responsive pages and disclosed nearly 500 pages in full or in part. Lucaj argued that the requests for assistance were not protected by Exemption 5 (privileges). The court first found that the records qualified as intra-agency records. The court noted that "here, both documents were requests for assistance from the OIA to foreign governments in furtherance of the government's investigation of possible national security crimes. The foreign governments therefore had a common interest in the investigation of the potential crimes and were not in an adversarial position vis-à-vis the United States government. Under these circumstances, the Court finds that the common interest doctrine applies and that the communications between the OIA and the foreign governments constituted 'intra-government' communications." The court then found that both documents were protected by the attorney work-product privilege. The court pointed out that "both documents were drafted by attorneys and are described as containing the DOJ's legal theories, compiled factual summaries, interpretations of evidence, and the statutory basis of the investigation into Plaintiff's actions. Because all of this constitutes attorney work-product, the Court cannot satisfy Plaintiff's request to redact only the deliberative materials and require production of the remaining factual statements in the documents. As [Sixth Circuit precedent] makes clear, the work-product privilege covers both the factual summaries as well as the deliberative processes contained within the documents." Finding the documents covered by the deliberative process privilege as well, the court added that "the release of these sensitive documents compiled during the course of an open investigation would 'expose' the agency's decision-making process, ultimately hampering its ability to perform its functions."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Inter- or intra-agency record, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Attorney work-product privilege | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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