Court opinion issued July 16, 2024
Kowal v. DOJ (D.C. Cir) -- affirming district court’s 2022 decisions—following multiple rounds of summary judgment—that: (1) the FBI, DEA, and ATF justified the adequacy of their searches for records concerning plaintiff’s client, Daniel Troya, who was sentenced to death for murder in 2009; and (2)(a) defendant agencies properly withheld third-party information pursuant to Exemption 7(C); (b) FBI properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–12, to withhold a narrative summary of a wiretap conversation; (c) FBI and DEA properly withheld source information pursuant to Exemption 7(D), noting that “grisly nature” of the crime “easily” supported inference of confidentiality for each source.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.