Legal News

U.S. Not Currently at War, Boston Federal Judge Rules

By Ashby Jones

The U.S. is not currently at war, at least according to Richard Stearns, a federal judge in Boston.

The determination wasn’t just so much dicta*. Judge Stearns actually had to decide whether the U.S. is at war in order to decide whether the statute of limitations had run on certain criminal charges in a case involving the Big Dig, the massive construction project that’s been going on for years in Beantown. Click here for a copy of the opinion. (Hat Tip: How Appealing).

The background: In May of 2006, former employees of a concrete supplier were indicted on a handful of charges alleging, among other things, that they’d submitted fraudulent reports to the government. The defendants argued that because the alleged activity took place in early 2001 and before, the charges were time-barred by the five-year statute of limitations.

The government, however, argued that something called the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, as the name implies, suspended the statue of limitations. The Act provides:

When the United States is at war the running of any statute of limitations applicable to any offense (1) involving fraud or attempted fraud against the United States or any agency thereof in any manner, whether by conspiracy or not . . . shall be suspended until three years after the termination of hostilities as proclaimed by the President or by a concurrent resolution of Congress.

Therefore, strange as it seems, Judge Stearns had to decide whether the U.S. is war to rule on a motion involving contractors in a highway project.

The opinion, while detailed, is a pretty fascinating read. The bottom line, according to Judge Stearns: the U.S. ended the war in Afghanistan on December 22, 2001 and ended the war in Iraq on May 1, 2003. In other words, the statute of limitations on the criminal charges hadn’t yet expired by the time the government filed its superseding indictment in June.

*Law Blog Definition of the Day: Dicta. For all those newbie law students out there who’ve yet to learn even the first thing they teach you in law school — that the New York Supreme Court is not the state’s highest — let us give you a little help, at least in defining a word you’re certain to come across by next week at the latest: Dicta is the plural of “dictum,” which, according to law.com’s handy legal dictionary, is a comment by a judge in a decision or ruling which is not required to reach the decision, but may state a related legal principle as the judge understands it.

Photo: Massachusetts Turnpike Authority

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).