Westmoreland v. Federal Bureau of Investigation

CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedAugust 26, 2015
DocketCivil Action No. 2013-2058
StatusPublished

This text of Westmoreland v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (Westmoreland v. Federal Bureau of Investigation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Westmoreland v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, (D.D.C. 2015).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

___________________________________ ) Guy J. Westmoreland, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) Civil Action No. 13-2058 (CKK) ) Federal Bureau of Investigation, ) ) Defendant. ) ___________________________________ )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter is before the Court on Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No.

22]. For the reasons discussed below, the motion will be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff brought this action under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), see 5

U.S.C. § 552, in an effort to obtain investigative records maintained by the Federal Bureau of

Investigation (“FBI”) in its Springfield, Illinois Field Office and its headquarters in Washington,

DC (“FBIHQ”), see generally Compl. ¶¶ 1-8, “pertaining to U.S. v. WESTMORELAND,

District Court No. 3:98-CR-30022-002-WDS.” Id. ¶ 1. In a FOIA request directed to the

Springfield Field Office, plaintiff sought the following information:

1) Any and all FD-302 forms dated January 5, 1998, January 6, 1998 and or which were appended to the transcripts of the recorded telephone conversations between [plaintiff] and Richard Abeln made by agent Kale Jackson of the F.B.I. on January 5, 1998;

1 2) Any and all case reports of conversations, interviews or statements between agent Jackson, F.B.I. and [plaintiff] on January 6, 1998; 3) Any and all case[] reports written by special agent Kale Jackson, F.B.I., on or concerning January 5, 1998, or January 6, 1998; and, 4) Any and all reports, notes, transcripts, tapes (audio or video) and/or other records of any events which occurred on January 5th. or 6th., 1998 in Illinois State Police Headquarters between [plaintiff] and special agent Kale Jackson, F.B.I.[,] or between special agent Kale Jackson, F.B.I., and unknown others concerning [plaintiff].

Mem. of P. & A. in Support of Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J. (“Def.’s Mem.”), Decl. of David M.

Hardy (“Hardy Decl.”), Ex. A (Freedom of Information Act Request dated June 13, 2000); see

Compl. ¶ 12. 1 FBI advised plaintiff “that the large number of [FOIA] requests received by the

FBI . . . caused a delay in processing his request,” which it had assigned FOIPA Number

0925665-000, and that his request was to be processed in turn. Hardy Decl. ¶ 9.

In April 2004, plaintiff submitted another request to the FBI for the same information he

sought in the June 13, 2000 request. Id. ¶ 10; see id., Ex. D (Freedom of Information Act

Request dated April 18, 2004). The FBI responded to the request, FOIPA No. 0925665-001,

with the release of 34 pages of records after having withheld certain information under

Exemptions 2, 7(C), and 7(D). Id. ¶ 12; see id., Ex. E (Letter to plaintiff from David M. Hardy,

Section Chief, Record/Information Dissemination Section, Records Management Division, FBI,

dated June 28, 2004). Dissatisfied with the response, plaintiff filed an administrative appeal of

the FBI’s initial determination to Office of Information & Privacy (“OIP”). Id. ¶ 13; see id., Ex.

F (Letter to Office of Information & Privacy from plaintiff dated August 16, 2004). On review

of the appeal, “and as a result of discussions between FBI personnel and a member of OIP’s

1 Plaintiff’s three prior FOIA requests, Nos. 0449247-000, 0927075-000, and 0925663-000, were closed administratively on June 2, 1999, May 10, 2000 and June 16, 2000, respectively. Hardy Decl. ¶ 6.

2 staff, the FBI conducted a further search and located records potentially responsive to his

request.” Id. ¶ 15; see id., Ex. H (Letter to plaintiff from Janice Galli McLeod, Associate

Director, OIP, dated February 19, 2008). Accordingly, the OIP remanded the request for review

and further processing of these newly-discovered records. Id. ¶ 15.

On remand from the OIP, the FBI “reopened [plaintiff’s] request and assigned it FOIPA

number 0925665-002.” Id. ¶ 16. FBI staff subsequently searched for and located potentially

responsive records maintained by FBIHQ. See id. ¶¶ 16-18, 20. On December 15, 2009, the FBI

notified plaintiff that its staff had reviewed 348 pages of records and it released 298 of these

pages to plaintiff. Id. ¶ 21. Further, the FBI informed plaintiff that certain information had been

withheld under Exemptions 2, 3, 6, 7(C), 7(D) and 7(E). Id.; see id., Ex. N (Letter to plaintiff

from David M. Hardy dated December 15, 2009). Plaintiff did not appeal this determination to

OIP. Id. ¶ 22.

Plaintiff’s next request was limited to “all 302’s, case notes, and any other documents

relating to the arrest of Guy J. Westmoreland on or about January 6, 1998 by FBI Agent, Kale

Jackson, including the attempted interrogation of Mr. Westmoreland on that date by Agent

Jackson.” Id., Ex. O (Freedom of Information Act Request dated June 6, 2013) at 2. He “sent a

duplicate request to the Fairview Heights, IL Resident Agency[.]” Id. ¶ 23. Both requests were

forwarded to FBIHQ and were assigned a tracking number, FOIPA Number 1220491-000. Id. ¶

24; see id., Ex. P (Letter to plaintiff from David M. Hardy dated July 24, 2013). FBI notified

plaintiff that records responsive to this request “were reviewed and released” to him on

December 16, 2009. Id., Ex. Q (Letter to plaintiff from David M. Hardy dated August 16, 2013).

Based on the FBI’s subsequent review of its response to FOIPA Number 1220491-000, it

was determined “that the 289 pages of records that [plaintiff] received in response to FOIPA

3 [Number 0925665-002] qualified for reprocessing.” Id. ¶ 27; see id., Ex. R (Letter to plaintiff

from David M. Hardy dated March 19, 2014). It “reviewed 260 pages of records and [released]

235 pages to plaintiff.” Id. ¶ 30; see id., Ex. U (Letter to plaintiff from David M. Hardy dated

October 20, 2014). 2

In addition, the FBI “located approximately 899 pages potentially responsive to

[plaintiff’s] request.” Id. ¶ 28. Its staff “reviewed 558 pages and [released] 475 pages to

plaintiff,” and explained that certain information had been withheld under Exemptions 3, 6, 7(C),

7(D) and 7(E). Id. ¶ 31; see id., Ex. V (Letter to plaintiff from David M. Hardy dated November

17, 2014). In addition, the FBI referred an unspecified number of pages to unspecified “other

government agencies,” id. ¶ 31, and upon return of these materials, the FBI withheld information

from some documents under Exemptions 6 and 7(C) and released the others in full, id. ¶ 32; see

id., Ex. W (Letter to plaintiff from David M. Hardy dated December 17, 2014).

Plaintiff filed this civil action in December 2013 [ECF No. 1]. Defendant requested

[ECF Nos. 13 and 16], and the Court granted [Minute Orders dated 07/12/2014 and 09/23/2014]

two extensions of time for its Answer or other response to the Complaint. Its motion for

summary judgment [ECF No. 22] was filed on January 6, 2015. 3 In its January 7, 2015 Order

[ECF No. 24], the Court directed plaintiff to file an opposition or other response to defendant’s

motion by February 13, 2015. The Order also advised plaintiff of his obligations under the

2 Although plaintiff incurred but has not paid copy fees, see Hardy Decl. ¶¶ 28, 31, the FBI nevertheless has released records, see id. ¶¶ 21, 30-31. 3 Plaintiff argued that defendant’s motion should be denied because it was not filed timely and because defendant did not respond to plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery. See Pl.’s Decl. in Opp’n to Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J. ¶ ¶ 13-14, 18-19.

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