William Hart Discusses First-Ever Use of Alien Terrorist Removal Court with Law360

Rogers Joseph O’Donnell, P.C. of counsel William G. Hart was quoted in a Law360 article examining the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to bring a case before the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) for the first time since the tribunal was created in 1996.

The article reports that the DOJ is seeking to remove a lawful permanent resident before the ATRC rather than through a traditional removal proceeding, an approach the government says allows it to avoid disclosing sensitive classified information.

Hart, a former senior federal prosecutor, told Law360 that choosing to activate this venue for the first time poses a substantial risk to the government, including the possibility that the removal is thrown out.

“To use a completely untested forum, which has stood dormant for 30 years, it’s an extraordinarily high-risk move, and I can’t think of a really good reason to do it,” Hart said.

He also pointed to existing mechanisms under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) for this type of situation that would meet the government’s stated goals.

“If this were under CIPA, there’s a lot of good case law to say that requiring defense attorneys to get security clearances in order for them to participate in CIPA hearings, that’s constitutional,” he said. “So, there is a good body of case law that the government would be well-grounded in in order to prevail. But here, they have an entirely different system.”

Hart has deep white-collar experience, including matters involving fraud, trade sanctions and export controls. He has also conducted large-scale internal corporate investigations, including those involving international issues and operations.

The full article can be found here (subscription required).