Notable cases
In February 2017, Public.Resource.Org was sued by the American Society for Testing and Materials, the National Fire Protection Association, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, and other entities for scanning and making available building codes and fire codes which these organizations consider their copyrighted property.[17][18] Chutkan ruled against Public.Resource.Org, ordering all of the standards to be deleted from the Internet.[19] Public.Resource.Org appealed her ruling to the D.C. Circuit, which reversed and remanded her decision in 2018, holding that the fair use doctrines had been improperly applied.[20] In March 2022, Chutkan issued a new ruling that would allow Public.Resource.Org to reproduce 184 standards under fair use, partially reproduce 1 standard, and deny reproduction of 32 standards that were found to differ in substantive ways from those incorporated by law;[21] ASTM et al. has since appealed again to the D.C. Circuit.[22]
In summer 2017, Chutkan presided over the Imran Awan and Hina Alvi fraud case.[23][24]
In Garza v. Hargan (2017), Chutkan ordered the Office of Refugee Resettlement to allow a girl in its care to have an abortion.[25] That ruling was vacated by a panel of the D.C. Circuit, reinstated by the full en banc D.C. Circuit, and ultimately mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court.[26] In December 2017, Chutkan granted relief to two additional pregnant minors who sued seeking access to abortion services while in ORR custody.[27] In March 2018, Chutkan certified a class action and ordered ORR to provide access to abortions to all minors in their custody.[28]
On June 8, 2018, Chutkan blocked until June 20 the release in Syrian Democratic Forces-controlled territory of a dual-nationality Saudi-American citizen alleged to have joined ISIL. The man, who is now held for nine months in Iraq, was planned to be released by the U.S. military – with a new cell phone, some food and water and $4,210 in cash, and his Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) identification card, as soon as the next day.[29][30]
On March 7, 2019, Chutkan ruled that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos illegally delayed the implementation of the "Equity in IDEA" regulations. These regulations updated how states calculate racial disparities in the identification of children as being eligible for special education, the placement of children in restrictive classroom settings, and the use exclusionary discipline. Chutkan also ruled that the U.S. Department of Education violated the law concerning the spread of regulations by neglecting to provide a "reasoned explanation" for the delay, and failing to account for the costs that child, parents, and society would bear.[31]
On April 26, 2019, Chutkan sentenced Maria Butina to 18 months in prison for conspiring to be an unregistered agent of the Russian government in the United States.[32][33]
On November 20, 2019, Chutkan issued a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Justice, finding that federal inmates sentenced to death were likely to succeed in arguing that the federal government's new lethal injection procedure – which uses a single drug, pentobarbital, rather than the three-drug combination previously in place – "exceeds statutory authority" under the Federal Death Penalty Act.[34] Chutkan's order was later reversed by a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit,[35] and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court.[36] The reversal of the injunction was upheld and thirteen federal inmates were executed.[37]
On November 9, 2021, Chutkan denied former President Donald Trump's motion to keep records from being released to the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.[38][39] The D.C. Circuit affirmed that decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review.[40]
Chutkan has overseen the trials of more than 30 defendants in cases related to the January 6 Capitol attack. According to The Washington Post, she has been the toughest sentencing judge in those cases, ordering at least some jail or prison time in all cases, and sometimes exceeding the sentence recommended by prosecutors.[41]
As of August 1, 2023, Chutkan was the judge overseeing Trump's criminal trial over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the events leading up to the January 6 Capitol attack.[42]
