Omar v. Harvey Urbina was assigned as the judge in
Omar v. Harvey, in which Shawqi Ahmad Omar, an American citizen, captured and detained in Iraq by United States military forces operating as part of the
Multi-National Force-Iraq, filed a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus preventing the U.S. military from transferring him from U.S. military custody at
Camp Cropper into the custody of Iraqi authorities for trial on terrorism charges in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Urbina issued an
ex parte temporary restraining order requiring that Omar "not be removed from United States custody" and later converted the order into a
preliminary injunction. The government appealed, and the D.C. Circuit, in a 2–1 decision, affirmed that the District Court had habeas jurisdiction under the
U.S. Supreme Court precedent in
Hirota v. MacArthur and that Omar's case could be reviewed because he had not yet been convicted by a foreign court. The case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard this matter together with
Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674 (2008). The Court unanimously affirmed Judge Urbina's conclusion that the habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(1), extends to U.S. citizens held overseas by American forces subject to an American chain of command, even if acting as part of a multinational coalition, but also found that habeas corpus provided the petitioners with no relief because "habeas corpus does not require the United States to shelter such fugitives from the criminal justice system of the sovereign with authority to prosecute them."
Guantanamo Bay detainees In
Rasul v. Rumsfeld (2006), Urbina found that British detainees at Guantanamo Bay could not bring a civil lawsuit against government officials under the
Alien Tort Statute or the
Geneva Conventions for alleged torture and mistreatment. Urbina did, however, find that the detainees could sue under the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act for alleged restraints on their religious free expression. That later judgment was then reversed by the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Urbina presided over a number of
habeas corpus petitions submitted on behalf of prisoners at the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In October 2008, he ordered the release of a small group of
Uighur detainees from Guantanamo into the United States because they are no longer regarded as
enemy combatants.
Saeed Hatim v. Barack Obama On December 16, 2009, Urbina ordered
Guantanamo captive "
Saeed Hatim" to be released. According to
Carol Rosenberg, writing in the
Miami Herald Urbina's release order was sealed, and it "brought the so-called habeas corpus scorecard to 32 losses and nine victories by the Pentagon of detainee challenges from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." Dean Boyd, a Department of Justice spokesman, told Rosenberg the Government was reviewing its options in how to react to the ruling.
Blackwater Baghdad shootings prosecution On December 31, 2009, a month before five
Blackwater Worldwide security guards implicated in the September 2007, Nisour Square, Baghdad, shooting incident were to go on trial, Urbina dismissed the case. Urbina said that the prosecutors improperly relied upon statements the guards gave to State Department investigators. The guards were required to make the statements if they wanted to keep their jobs—thus making them inadmissible under the
Fifth Amendment. The immunity issue was a problem that lawyers for the government anticipated as long as a year ago when they briefed Congress on the matter. Judge Urbina dismissed the indictment of the five men who pleaded not guilty to voluntary manslaughter and firearms violations: Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten. In 2011, a federal appeals court overruled Urbina, reinstated the charges against four out of the five men. In 2014, all four were convicted.
Heller v. District of Columbia A
District of Columbia resident, Dick Anthony Heller filed suit against the District challenging the constitutionality of its
laws regulating gun registration and gun restriction. Urbina dismissed
Heller v. District of Columbia in 2010 and upheld the constitutionality of the statute. The dismissal was appealed and overturned in a 2–1 vote. The case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in a 5–4 vote sided with Heller and declare the District's regulations unconstitutional.
Electronic Privacy Information Center v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security The
Transportation Security Administration has taken several thousand images of individuals passing through the
Full Body Scanner to demonstrate its effectiveness to TSA employees. The
EPIC sued the
DHS for the release of the images. Urbina sided with the TSA, arguing that a release of the images would threaten national security. ==Death==