Woods v. Thompson

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: November 5, 2024
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2024-3093
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

TODD WOODS, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) Civil Action No. 24-03093 (UNA) ) ) GARY THOMPSON et al., ) ) Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter, brought pro se, is before the Court on its review of Plaintiff’s complaint, ex

parte motions for emergency relief, and application for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The

Court will grant the application and dismiss the case.

On October 31, 2024, Plaintiff, a resident of Washington, D.C., initiated this lawsuit

against the Chairman of the D.C. Board of Elections and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, alleging that

he “will be the victim of substantial harm as a U.S. citizen if my D.C. vote is nullified or replaced

by a non-U.S. citizen, erroneously allowed by D.C. Law 24-242[,]” in violation 18 U.S.C. § 611.

Compl., ECF No. 1 at 4. As relief, Plaintiff wants “all ballots received from non-citizen voters [ ]

to be immediately set aside,” not “opened or tallied until addressed by emergency order from

court,” and “all voter rolls . . . purged [of] non-citizens.” Id.

Plaintiff cites as the basis of federal court jurisdiction 18 U.S.C. § 611, Compl. at 3, which

is a criminal statute that makes it “unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in

part for the purpose of electing a candidate for [federal] office” and penalizes violators with a fine

or imprisonment of “not more than one year, or both.” 18 U.S.C. § 611(a), (b). But “[t]he Supreme Court has ‘rarely implied a private right of action under a criminal statute,’ ” and the

straightforward text of § 611 does not suggests that “Congress intended to create a concomitant

civil remedy.” Lee v. United States Agency for Int'l Dev., 859 F.3d 74, 77-78 (D.C. Cir. 2017)

(quoting Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 316 (1979)).

Notwithstanding the pleading defect, the Supreme Court “has consistently held” that a

plaintiff raising, as here, “only a generally available grievance about government,” claiming no

specific harm to himself, and “seeking relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than

it does the public at large does not state an Article III case or controversy” or establish Article III

standing. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 573-74 (1992). And the “core component

of the requirement that a litigant have standing to invoke the authority of a federal court ‘is an

essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.’”

DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342 (2006) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560).

Consequently, this case will be dismissed by separate order.

_________/s/_____________ ANA C. REYES Date: November 5, 2024 United States District Judge