205-02.pdf

Appendix B Case 9:08-cv-80736-KAM Document 205-2 Entered on FLSD Docket 07/05/2013 Page 1 of 20 1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CASE NO. 08-80736-CIV-MARRA/JOHNSON JANE DOE #1 AND JANE DOE #2, Petitioners, vs. UNITED STATES, Respondent. _______________________________/ U NITED STATES’ SEALED MOTION TO DISMISS FOR LACK OF SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION The United States hereby requests that this Court enter an order dismissing these proceedings and the Petition for Enforcement of Crime Victim’s Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 3771 (DE 1, the “Petition”), through which Petitioners Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 have advanced claims pursuant to the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA”), for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 1 This Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the Petition because 1 See, e.g., Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global Group, L.P., 541 U.S. 567, 571 (2004) (“Challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction can of course be raised at any time prior to final judgment.”); United States v. Giraldo-Prado, 150 F.3d 1328, 1329 (11th Cir. 1998) (recognizing that “a party may raise jurisdiction at any time during the pendency of the proceedings”); Harrell & Sumner Contracting Co. v. Peabody Petersen Co., 546 F.2d 1227, 1229 (5th Cir. 1977) (“[U]nder Rule 12(h)(3), Fed.R.Civ.P., the defense of lack of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time by motion of a party or otherwise.”); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3). In the present motion, the United States seeks dismissal of Petitioners’ claims based on both a legal and factual challenge to the Court’s subject matter jurisdiction. This Court may properly consider and weigh evidence beyond Petitioners’ allegations when evaluating such a challenge to the Court’s subject matter jurisdiction: Factual attacks [on a Court’s subject matter jurisdiction] . . . “challenge subject matter jurisdiction in fact, irrespective of the pleadings.” In resolving a factual attack, the district court “may consider extrinsic evidence such as testimony and affidavits.” Since such a motion implicates the fundamental question of a trial Case 9:08-cv-80736-KAM Document 205-2 Entered on FLSD Docket 07/05/2013 Page 2 of 20 2 Petitioners lack Article III standing and because the claims raised by Petitioners in these proceedings are not constitutionally ripe. I. The Claims Raised in the Petition Must Be Dismissed for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction Because the Petitioners Lack Standing to Bring Those Claims. These proceedings pursuant to the CVRA must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because Petitioners lack standing to pursue the remedies that they are seeking for alleged CVRA violations. As the Supreme Court has explained, to satisfy Article III’s standing requirements, a plaintiff must show (1) it has suffered an “injury in fact” that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000); see also, e.g., Young Apartments, Inc. v. Town of Jupiter, 529 F.3d 1027, 1038 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting Harris v. Evans, 20 F.3d 1118, 1121 (11th Cir. 1994) (en banc)). Moreover, “a plaintiff must demonstrate standing separately for each form of relief sought.” Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 185. Here, the record incontrovertibly demonstrates that Petitioners cannot satisfy the third prong of the standing test, and the Petition and these proceedings must accordingly be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 2 E.g., Florida Wildlife Federation, Inc. v. South Florida court’s jurisdiction, a “trial court is free to weigh the evidence and satisfy itself as to the existence of its power to hear the case” without presuming the truthfulness of the plaintiff’s allegations. Makro Capital of America, Inc. v. UBS AG, 543 F.3d 1254, 1258 (11th Cir. 2008) (citations omitted); see also, e.g., McMaster v. United States, 177 F.3d 936, 940 (11th Cir. 1999) (“[W]e determine whether this lawsuit survives the government’s factual attack [on subject matter jurisdiction] by looking to matters outside the pleadings, and we do not accord any presumptive truthfulness to the allegations in the complaint.”); Scarfo v. Ginsberg, 175 F.3d 957, 960-61 (11th Cir. 1999). 2 Although Petitioners also fail to satisfy the first and second prongs of the standing test, Case 9:08-cv-80736-KAM Document 205-2 Entered on FLSD Docket 07/05/2013 Page 3 of 20 3 Water Management Dist., 647 F.3d 1296, 1302 (11th Cir. 2011) (“If at any point in the litigation the plaintiff ceases to meet all three requirements for constitutional standing, the case no longer presents a live case or controversy, and the federal court must dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”); Phoenix of Broward, Inc. v. McDonald’s Corp., 489 F.3d 1156, 1161 (11th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he issue of constitutional standing is jurisdictional . . . .”); National Parks Conservation Ass’n v. Norton, 324 F.3d 1229, 1242 (11th Cir. 2003) (“[B]ecause the constitutional standing doctrine stems directly from Article III’s ‘case or controversy’ requirement, this issue implicates our subject matter jurisdiction, and accordingly must be addressed as a threshold matter regardless of whether it is raised by the parties.”) (citation omitted). In these proceedings, the only identified legal relief that Petitioners have sought pursuant to the CVRA is the setting aside of the Non-Prosecution Agreement that was entered into between Jeffrey Epstein and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (“USAO-SDFL”). See, e.g., DE 99 at 6 (recognizing that the relief Petitioners seek “is to invalidate the non-prosecution agreement”). But even assuming arguendo that Petitioners’ rights under the CVRA were violated when Epstein and the USAO-SDFL entered into the Non- Prosecution Agreement, constitutional due process guarantees do not allow either the Non- Prosecution Agreement – which by its terms induced Epstein to, inter alia, plead guilty to state criminal charges and serve an 18-month sentence of state incarceration 3 – or the governmental this Court need not reach or address those issues because an analysis of the third prong of the standing test incontrovertibly establishes the Petitioners’ lack of standing. Nonetheless, the circumstances which demonstrate Petitioners’ lack of a concrete injury traceable to government conduct are explored infra in Section II of this memorandum, which addresses how Petitioners’ claims and these proceedings lack constitutional ripeness.