Federal judicial service
Leon was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by George W. Bush on September 10, 2001, to the seat vacated by Norma Holloway Johnson. Confirmed by the Senate on February 14, 2002, he received his judicial commission five days later. He assumed senior status on December 31, 2016.
Guantanamo Bay
Leon was responsible for adjudicating the habeas corpus petitions of several dozen captives held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[5][6][7]
Boumediene v. Bush, which was eventually considered by the Supreme Court, was first heard by Leon. By August 28, 2008, Leon had 24 cases assigned to him.[8]
The Associated Press reported Leon hoped to resolve those cases before the presidential inauguration in 2009 and was concerned that the public and the detainees will be barred from observing the hearings: "If it can't be done, I have great concern that these hearings will be virtually or exclusively classified, closed to the public and, I might add, to the detainees."[9]
During a hearing on October 23, 2008, Leon commented on the ambiguity of the term "enemy combatant" and criticized Congress and the Supreme Court: "We are here today, much to my dismay, I might add, to deal with a legal question that in my judgment should have been resolved a long time ago. I don't understand, I really don't, how the Supreme Court made the decision it made and left that question open... I don't understand how the Congress could let it go this long without resolving."[10] On November 20, Leon ordered five detainees released from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base due to insufficient evidence.[11][12]
In December 2008, Leon denied Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alawi's habeas corpus petition, finding the enemy combatant's detention was lawful under the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001.[13][14] In February 2017, Leon denied another habeas corpus petition from al Alawi, rejecting the detainee's claim that the war's hostilities had ceased.[15][16]
NSA metadata collection unconstitutional
On December 16, 2013, Leon ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' telephony records likely violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, though he stayed enforcement of his injunction pending appeal to the D.C. Circuit.[17] Excerpts from his decision are as follows:[18]
I cannot imagine a more "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary invasion" than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every citizen [...] the almost-Orwellian technology [...] Records that once would have revealed a few scattered tiles of information about a person now reveal an entire mosaic – a vibrant constantly updating picture of a person's life. [...] No court has ever recognized a special need sufficient to justify continuous, daily searches of virtually every American citizen without any particularized suspicion. The Government urges me to be the first non-FISC judge to sanction such a dragnet. [...] The Government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack [...] Because of the utter lack of evidence that a terrorist act has ever been prevented because searching the NSA database was faster than other investigative tactics – I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program [...] I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison [...] would be aghast.
Other notable cases
In January 2010, Leon preliminarily enjoined the Food and Drug Administration from blocking the importation of electronic cigarettes.[19]
In 2010 he threw out the charges in an obscenity case against director John Stagliano: "I hope the government will learn a lesson from its experience", calling the Justice Department's prosecution "woefully insufficient".[20]
In 2011, he dismissed former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt as an expert witness, after Pitt while testifying in a deposition as an expert witness for securities class action plaintiffs suing Fannie Mae, refused to answer any more questions and walked out of his deposition.[21][22][23][24]
On November 7, 2011, Leon issued a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for ordering graphic images on cigarette packs. On February 29, 2012, Leon's final ruling held that the graphic images and statements violated the commercial right to free speech.
On September 1, 2011, Leon approved Assistant Attorney General Christine A. Varney's agreement allowing the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast.[25][26]
On January 2, 2013, Leon ruled that a memo linking the Palestinian Authority (PA) to a suicide bombing that killed two American teenagers and one Israeli teen be returned to the PA or destroyed. The memo had been inadvertently turned over to attorneys for the families of the victims in a lawsuit over the killings. In a motion for a stay of Leon's order, lawyers for the plaintiffs said if they returned or destroyed the memo, "this critically important evidence of murder will likely be lost forever."[27]
On May 17, 2016, Leon ruled that limits imposed by Washington, D.C., on permits to carry handguns were unconstitutional. He struck down the District requirement that an applicant show "good reason" before a concealed carry permit would be issued.[28]
In August 2016 Leon issued a controversial stay of the Purple Line, a long-delayed light rail transit project in the D.C. suburbs, insisting that the project needed another Environmental Impact Statement.[29] Maryland Governor Larry Hogan noted Leon's close relationship with the Columbia Country Club, a prominent opponent of the project. Leon's ruling was later overruled.[30]
On January 4, 2018, Leon denied a request by Fusion GPS to block the House Intelligence Committee from demanding bank records of 70 of the private investigative firm's transactions with law firms, journalists and contractors, ruling that the request "did not violate the company's First Amendment rights" to political speech and association.[31]
On June 12, 2018, Leon rejected all of Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim's claims and refused to block the $85.4 billion merger of AT&T and Time Warner.[32]
On November 29, 2018, Leon raised concerns surrounding the recent close of a $68 billion merger between CVS Health and Aetna Inc. after learning CVS closed its acquisition before obtaining court approval of an antitrust settlement the companies reached with the government. In expressing skepticism over the merger, Leon cited opposition from the American Medical Association (AMA), which previously warned that the deal would lead to higher premium and out-of-pocket costs for patients purchasing drugs, as well as reduce the quality of health insurance. Leon chided the companies and the Justice Department for treating him like a “rubber stamp," complaining he was “being kept in the dark” about the closing of the merger.[33]
On February 15, 2019, Leon dismissed a lawsuit brought by the North American Butterfly Association against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking to prevent the building of a border wall through its National Butterfly Center, a 100-acre wildlife preserve in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. He said the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures "offers little refuge for unenclosed land near one of the country’s external borders" and that environmental review had been properly waived by the DHS.[34]
On July 19, 2019, Leon upheld the Trump administration's health insurance expansion that allowed companies to offer additional plans that do not meet the coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Leon rejected the claim by the Association for Community Affiliated Plans that the move to authorize short-term coverage plans was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and granted summary judgement to the government. The insurance companies plan to appeal.[35]
In November 2019 Leon ruled that President Barack Obama's proclamation that expanded the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon violated the Oregon and California Railroad and Coos Bay Wagon Road Grant Lands Act of 1937.[36] In that case, American Forest Resource Council v. Hammond, Leon also held that the Bureau of Land Management had wrongly restricted commercial timber harvesting on the O&C Lands under the Northwest Forest Plan. Leon's decision was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in July 2023.[37]
On December 30, 2019, the subject dismissed Charles M. Kupperman v United States House of Representatives, et al., a case, briefly, at the center of both the Trump–Ukraine scandal and the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump which became moot due to the subpoenas being withdrawn.[38][39]
On March 29, 2022, Leon dismissed the Electronic Frontier Foundation's constitutional challenge against the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) in the case Woodhull Freedom Foundation, et al. v. U.S.; Leon upheld the constitutionality of the law and rejected the plaintiffs' arguments.[40] His ruling was affirmed by Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on July 07, 2023 following the Electronic Frontier Foundation's appeal. [41]
