Am. First Legal Found. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case involving records about DOJ’s handling of the prosecuting and sentencing of an arsonist from the 2020 Minneapolis riots, granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; concluding that a presentence investigation report (“PSR”), which originated with the U.S. Probation Office, qualified as an “agency record” under DOJ’s legal control because, inter alia, the Bureau of Prisons uses such reports for “multiple purposes post-sentencing,” and the reports are transmitted to the U.S. Parole Commission to be integrated into the “framework of executive branch decision-making”; rejecting, in this regard, DOJ’s argument that the PSR at issue ought to be sealed, as the agency failed to produce a valid sealing order, and its public referencing of the PSR in sentencing filings “waives any residual confidentiality claim[s]”; holding further, with respect to a record reflecting DOJ’s recommendation for a downward variance, that the record was properly withheld under Exemption 5, in conjunction with the deliberative-process and attorney work-product privileges, as well as Exemption7(C), and that DOJ satisfied the foreseeable-harm standard.
Grand Marina Investors v. Internal Revenue Serv. (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment; holding, firstly, that the requester failed to administratively exhaust its challenge to the IRS’s search, in large part because the requester failed to address the issue in its summary-judgment briefing and “‘spell out its arguments squarely and distinctly’”; holding further that the IRS properly applied Exemption 3, in conjunction with I.R.C. § 6103; Exemption 5, in conjunction with the deliberative-process privilege; and Exemption 7(E); describing the requester’s argument, at various points, as “woefully underdeveloped,” “ring[ing] hallow,” and otherwise ungrounded in controlling caselaw.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.