UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA STEPHEN GILL, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 18-2380 (JEB) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION The Supreme Court has often emphasized that “[j]ust as military society has been a society apart from civilian society, so ‘military law . . . is a jurisprudence which exists separate and apart from the law which governs in our federal judicial establishment.’” Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 744 (1974) (alterations omitted) (quoting Burns v. Wilson, 346 U.S. 137, 140 (1953)). Sometimes, however, military law and society collide with their civilian counterparts. This is one such case. The Court here considers the suit brought by Stephen Gill, a current civilian and former active-duty officer who was forcefully taken from his Massachusetts home by U.S. Marshals and compelled to testify in Virginia by video in front of a Guantanamo Bay military commission. Gill alleges a variety of claims against the Government and its employees, seeking recompense for his treatment at their hands. Many of his theories of relief implicate the fragile divide between the military and civilian court systems, a divide this Court is hesitant to breach unnecessarily. While troubled by the conduct alleged in the Complaint, it ultimately concludes that the Individual Defendants are immune from suit –– immunity that precludes the Court from 1 reaching the merits of the claims against them. As such, it will partially grant Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss. The Court offers no opinion as to the remainder of Gill’s counts, which he lodges against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Instead, he must pursue such claims in the venue in which most of the offensive conduct took place –– i.e., the District of Massachusetts. The Court accordingly transfers what is left of the case there for further proceedings. I. Background A. Factual Background The Military Commissions Act of 2006 “authorize[s] trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes.” Pub. L. No. 109–336, 120 Stat. 2600 (codified at 10 U.S.C. §§ 948–49). Today’s military commissions are the product of an extensive dialogue among all three branches of government. Signed into law by two different Presidents, the MCA was originally passed by Congress following a Supreme Court decision that invalidated the prior commission process, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 635 (2006), and it was amended 2009. See Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 1807, Stat. 2574. The MCA establishes a “special set of procedures for using ‘military commissions to try alien unprivileged enemy belligerents.’” In re Al-Nashiri, 921 F.3d 224, 227 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (quoting 10 U.S.C. § 948b(a)). These procedures are borrowed from the courts-martial system, which is similar to but distinct from its civilian cousin. See O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U.S. 258, 261 (1969) (“[T]he exigencies of military discipline require the existence of a special system of military courts in which not all of the specific procedural protections deemed essential in Art. III trials need apply.”) ...
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