DAN AARON POLSTER, District Judge.
This case is before the Court on the Motion of John Demjanjuk pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 60 (hereafter, "Motion" or "Rule 60 Motion").
The Court has reviewed the Rule 60 Motion and the memorandum in support (Doc ## : 219, 220), the Government's opposition brief (Doc # : 229), and Demjanjuk's reply brief (Doc # : 232), along with the attachments and the record. For reasons that follow, the Court
John Demjanjuk, born Iwan Demjanjuk in the Ukraine, was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1940. In 1941, he was wounded by shrapnel which left a scar on his back. After a brief hospital stay, he returned to active duty. In 1942, he was captured by German soldiers in the Battle of the Crimea. The Germans thereafter transported him to POW camps in Rovno, Ukraine and Chelm, Poland.
At the time of his capture, the Nazis had initiated "Operation Reinhard," a program for the systematic extermination of Jews in Poland. Extermination camps were constructed to implement Action Reinhard in Poland, including in Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka. Because the German SS lacked sufficient manpower to carry out the program, it recruited Soviet war prisoners from the Rovno and Chelm camps to assist. These recruits were taken to Trawniki, an SS camp where they were trained to implement the program, were given uniforms, and took an oath to serve the SS.
The whereabouts and status of Demjanjuk between the time he arrived at the POW camps in 1942 and the end of World War II have been the subject of numerous legal proceedings both here and abroad. It is undisputed, however, that following Germany's surrender in 1945, Demjanjuk was taken by American forces to several displaced persons camps, eventually arriving
The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 ("DPA") was enacted to enable "eligible displaced persons" driven from their homelands by World War II to immigrate to the United States regardless of traditional immigration quotas. Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490, 495, 101 S.Ct. 737, 66 L.Ed.2d 686 (1981). Persons who had "assisted the enemy in persecuting civil[ians]" or who "had voluntarily assisted the enemy forces ... in their operations," however, were expressly excluded from being displaced persons eligible for immigration under the DPA. Id. The burden of proving eligibility rested on the applicant, and any person who made "a misrepresentation for the purpose of gaining admission into the United States as an eligible displaced person" was deemed inadmissible. Id.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act provides that citizenship can be revoked if it was illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation. 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a). In 1981, the Supreme Court held that an individual's prior service as an armed concentration camp guard, whether voluntary or involuntary, made that person ineligible for a DPA visa as a matter of law. Fedorenko, 449 U.S. at 509-10, 101 S.Ct. 737. The Court further held that a DPA visa applicant who failed to disclose that he had been an armed guard at a concentration camp had made a false statement that was material, rendering him inadmissible into the United States. Id. Where a naturalized citizen was ineligible for a visa, his citizenship was deemed "illegally procured" and subject to revocation. Id. at 514, 101 S.Ct. 737 (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a)). The right of citizenship once conferred, however, should not be stripped away absent clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that the citizenship was procured illegally. Id., 449 U.S. at 505, 101 S.Ct. 737.
In 1948, Demjanjuk initiated procedures to immigrate to the United States as an eligible displaced person under the DPA. As required, he first applied for assistance to the International Refugee Organization ("IRO"), the agency created by the United Nations following the war to assist displaced persons. During the IRO interview, Demjanjuk represented that he lived and worked in Sobibor, Poland from 1937 to 1943, and in Pilau, Germany from 1943 to 1944. Demjanjuk next applied for, and received, qualification as an eligible displaced person, representing that he lived and worked in Sobibor from 1936 to 1943, followed by Danzig, Germany from 1943 to 1944, and Munich, Germany from 1944 to 1945. In 1951, Demjanjuk filed an application for a DPA visa representing that he lived in Sobibor from 1934 to 1943, in Pilau from 1943 to September 1944, and in Munich from September 1944 to May 1945. In 1952, Demjanjuk moved to the United States after obtaining a visa.
In 1958, Demjanjuk applied for naturalization. During that process, the Immigration and Naturalization Service checked his immigration and visa file to verify that his entry into the United States was lawful, as lawful entry is a prerequisite for naturalization. On the application, Demjanjuk denied having ever given false testimony for the purpose of obtaining any benefits under the immigration and naturalization laws. On November 14, 1958, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio naturalized Demjanjuk at which time he changed his first name from Iwan to John. Demjanjuk eventually moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked at the Ford Motor plant until his retirement 30 years later.
The legal battle over the identity and whereabouts of Demjanjuk during war years 1942 to 1945 began in 1977, when the Government instituted a proceeding to denaturalize him for illegally procuring his citizenship. United States v. Demjanjuk, Case No. C77-923, N.D. Ohio (Battisti, J.). The Government contended that Demjanjuk was one of the Russian POW recruits who was trained at Trawniki and served as an SS guard at Treblinka, and that he willfully misrepresented his service and location during the war on his visa and immigration applications to gain admission to the United States. The Government alleged that he illegally procured his citizenship because his service in Treblinka precluded him from qualifying as an "eligible displaced person" under the DPA which, in turn, precluded him from obtaining a valid DPA visa. These allegations, if true, were grounds for denaturalization.
The evidentiary centerpiece of the proceeding was a German war document purporting to identify Iwan Demjanjuk as an SS guard at Trawniki ("the Trawniki card"), the original of which was held in the Vinnitskiy Oblast State Archive in the former U.S.S.R. The back of the Trawniki card bears a photograph of "Iwan Demjanjuk" with John Demjanjuk's correct birth date, father's name, birthplace and nationality. The card notes as a "special feature" that Iwan Demjanjuk has a scar on his back. The allegation driving the litigation, however, was the Government's assertion that Demjanjuk was "Ivan the Terrible," a gas chamber operator at Treblinka known for his particularly savage cruelty.
At the denaturalization proceeding, five Treblinka survivors and one guard testified that they knew Ivan the Terrible. These six witnesses looked at photospreads which included Demjanjuk's 1951 visa picture and the picture of Iwan Demjanjuk on the back of the Trawniki card, and testified that the persons in those two pictures were Ivan the Terrible. However, apparently neither the Government nor the defense asked these witnesses at trial if they saw Ivan the Terrible in the courtroom. As a consequence, no witness made an in-court identification of Ivan the Terrible. Although Demjanjuk agreed that the photograph on the Trawniki card resembled him, he maintained — throughout this and every subsequent proceeding — that he was a victim of misidentification, and the Trawniki card was a Soviet forgery.
On June 23, 1981, the district court issued a decision revoking Demjanjuk's citizenship. United States v. Demjanjuk, 518 F.Supp. 1362 (N.D.Ohio 1981). The court found the Government showed by clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that Demjanjuk served the German SS as a guard at both Trawniki and Treblinka in 1942 to 1943, that he was in fact Ivan the Terrible, and that he willfully misrepresented his SS service on his DPA visa application. Because Demjanjuk's citizenship was procured by the willful misrepresentation of material facts, the court concluded, his citizenship must be revoked. Id., aff'd per curiam, 680 F.2d 32 (1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1036, 103 S.Ct. 447, 74 L.Ed.2d 602 (1982).
Following deportation and extradition proceedings, Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel to face war crimes charges based on his having been Treblinka gas chamber operator Ivan the Terrible. In April 1988, an Israeli court found that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, convicted him of crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to death by hanging. In the years following this verdict, however, there was much uncertainty concerning the identification of Ivan the Terrible. According to eyewitness accounts, Ivan the Terrible was a man named Ivan Marchenko who did not resemble Demjanjuk. There were also allegations that government prosecutors purposely withheld evidence corroborating these accounts. In July 1993, the Israeli Supreme Court acquitted Demjanjuk of all charges, based largely on statements of Ukrainian guards at Treblinka who identified a man named Ivan Marchenko as Ivan the Terrible.
Following acquittal, the Sixth Circuit reopened, sua sponte, the case in which it had denied habeas relief to Demjanjuk from his extradition order. It did so to determine whether the denaturalization proceeding, upon which all subsequent proceedings were based, had been tainted by prosecutorial misconduct constituting a fraud on the court. In November 1993, following hearings and the investigation and findings of a special master, the court issued a lengthy opinion concluding that the Government had in fact engaged in prosecutorial misconduct constituting a fraud on the court by failing to disclose to the courts and Demjanjuk evidence supporting Demjanjuk's defense that he was misidentified as Ivan the Terrible. Demjanjuk v. Petrovsky, 10 F.3d 338 (6th Cir. 1993). Among the evidence the appeals court found the Government had failed to disclose were: statements of two former Treblinka guards both of whom identified a man other than Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible and one of whom identified a man named Ivan Marchenko as the Treblinka gas chamber operator who committed some of the atrocities the Government attributed to Demjanjuk; the statement of one of the guards that a man named Ivan Demjanjuk worked at Treblinka as a cook, that a guard named Marchenko operated the gas chambers, and the man he knew as Ivan Demjanjuk was not pictured in the photospread shown to him; the statement of a Sobibor guard that Demjanjuk was a fellow guard at the camps in Sobibor, Poland and Flossenburg, Germany; statements of five Soviets who served at Trawniki, four of whom could not identify Demjanjuk by the photospread and one whose identification was tentative; and
In February 1998, the district court set aside its denaturalization ruling and restored Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship after finding, among other things, that the prosecutors "acted with reckless disregard" to the requests of counsel and the orders of the court in failing to disclose exculpatory evidence. United States v. Demjanjuk, No. C77-923, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4047, at *18 (N.D.Ohio 1998). The district court found, in addition to the aforementioned withheld evidence, that the Government had also improperly withheld the identity of an ethnic German, Jacob Reimer, who served as a clerical officer at Trawniki during the period Demjanjuk was alleged to have served there as a guard. Reimer had subsequently been admitted to the United States and was still living here during the denaturalization proceedings. He was initially described by the Government as someone who "may turn out to be an important witness," was "a potential source of information about Trawniki generally," and was a clerical official who may have been "able to assist in the authentication of Trawniki documents." Demjanjuk, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4047, at *12. He was interviewed by the lead Government lawyers in February 1980. However, the only evidence of that interview was a memorandum from one Government attorney to another concluding that Reimer had "no useful information." Id. The court found that Reimer's existence should have been disclosed to Demjanjuk who could have then determined for himself whether Reimer had useful information. Although the district court vacated its denaturalization judgment, it denied Demjanjuk's request to dismiss the case with prejudice, the effect of which would have prohibited the Government from bringing another denaturalization proceeding against him. The court explained, "[j]ust as the government should not be able to profit from its misbehavior, neither should a defendant be insulated from the consequences of his alleged moral turpitude because he becomes the inadvertent beneficiary of sanctions against the government." Id. at *19.
In May 1999, the Government filed a second denaturalization proceeding against Demjanjuk, this time alleging that he persecuted civilian prisoners at the Trawniki, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Flossenburg concentration camps, but not Treblinka. (Doc # : 1.) At trial, the Government again presented the Trawniki card to identify Demjanjuk. This time, however, the Government also presented a disciplinary report which placed Demjanjuk at the Majdanek camp on January 20, 1943; a transfer roster which placed Demjanjuk at the Sobibor camp beginning March 26, 1943; and a transfer roster, weapons log, and daily duty rosters which placed Demjanjuk at the Flossenburg camp for one year beginning October 1943. Although Demjanjuk did not testify at trial, his counsel again argued that the Trawniki card was a Soviet forgery, and that it misidentified Demjanjuk in any event.
Following trial, the court issued Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law revoking Demjanjuk's citizenship. United
Demjanjuk was thereafter deported to Germany where he stood trial in Munich's Landgericht for being an accessory to murder as a guard at the Sobibor death camp during World War II. On April 12, 2011, in the midst of closing arguments, an article was published by Associated Press ("AP") reporters. (Doc # : 222-3 ("the AP article").) The AP article begins:
(Id. at 1.)
The FBI documents at the heart of this latest controversy are a 1985 cover letter and memo written by now-retired Special Agent Thomas Martin to FBI headquarters.
(Doc # : 229-1, at 11-13.)
In the cover letter to the memo, Martin opines that the Demjanjuk matter,
(Id. at 14-15.) Accordingly, to prevent the USDJ/OSI from becoming a tool of the KGB, Martin requested that the Executive Agencies Unit communicate with the USDJ/OSI in an effort to determine the origin of the anonymous letters to the Department of Justice identifying certain emigres as having been Nazi war criminals. (Id. at 15.)
Based on the AP article, Demjanjuk's German counsel, Ulrich Busch, filed a motion to stay the criminal proceeding so that he could go to the United States to review Demjanjuk material held at the National Archives in Maryland, where the AP reporters found the FBI documents. (See generally Doc # : 222-8.) The Munich court denied Demjanjuk's request to stay that proceeding. (Id.) On May 12, 2011, Demjanjuk was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to five years in prison with credit for time served (approximately two years). Both sides have appealed that ruling, and the appeals are presently pending. Demjanjuk was released pending further proceedings, and is presently living in a nursing facility in Bavaria due to his health.
Demjanjuk has filed the pending Rule 60 Motion, asking the Court to authorize further discovery based on these documents, to schedule a hearing to complete the record and, upon conclusion, to set aside the denaturalization judgment for prosecutorial misconduct. He again asks the Court to dismiss the case with prejudice. The Government
Demjanjuk brings the pending Motion under Rules 60(b)(6), 60(d)(1), and 60(d)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 60 provides relief from a judgment or order either by motion (Rule 60(b)) or by independent action (Rule 60(d)). Mitchell v. Rees, 651 F.3d 593, 594-95 (6th Cir. 2011).
Rule 60(b) allows a district court the discretion to vacate a final judgment for the following reasons:
Relief under Rule 60(b) is circumscribed, however, by the public policy favoring the finality of judgments and termination of litigation. Info-Hold, Inc. v. Sound Merch., Inc., 538 F.3d 448, 454 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Blue Diamond Coal Co. v. Trs. of UMWA Combined Benefit Fund, 249 F.3d 519, 524 (6th Cir.2001)). This is especially true with regard to Rule 60(b)(6), the catch-all provision, which applies "only in exceptional or extraordinary circumstances which are not addressed by the first five numbered clauses of the Rule." Blue Diamond Coal, 249 F.3d at 524 (quoting Olle v. Henry & Wright Corp., 910 F.2d 357, 365 (6th Cir.1990)). "This is because `almost every conceivable ground for relief is covered' under the other subsections of Rule 60(b)." Id. Therefore, courts should apply Rule 60(b)(6) relief only in "unusual and extreme situations where principles of equity mandate relief." Id. (emphasis in original).
Rule 60(d)(1) is a savings clause that applies whenever the time for filing a motion for relief under 60(b) expires. It allows a party to file an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding. The elements necessary for a Rule 60(d)(1) independent cause of action are:
Barrett v. Sec'y of Health & Human Servs., 840 F.2d 1259, 1263 (6th Cir.1987); see also Mitchell, 651 F.3d at 595. Furthermore, an independent action is available only to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice, which is a stringent and demanding standard. Mitchell, 651 F.3d at 595 (citing United States v. Beggerly, 524 U.S. 38, 47, 118 S.Ct. 1862, 141 L.Ed.2d 32
The Sixth Circuit has narrowly interpreted fraud on the court under Rule 60(d)(3). McKenna v. Nestle Purina PetCare Co., No. C2-05-976, 2011 WL 14418, at *2 (S.D.Ohio Jan. 3, 2011). "Fraud upon the court should ... embrace only that species of fraud which does or attempts to, subvert the integrity of the court itself, or is a fraud perpetrated by officers of the court so that the judicial machinery cannot perform in the usual manner its impartial task of adjudging cases that are presented for adjudication, and relief should be denied in the absence of such conduct." Id. (quoting Demjanjuk, 10 F.3d at 352). "Relief under Rule 60(d)(3), therefore, is usually `reserved for circumstances in which, for example, a judge or a juror has been bribed, a bogus document is inserted in the record, or improper influence has been exerted upon the court or an attorney so that the integrity of the court and its ability to function is directly impinged.'" Id. (quoting Morawski v. United States Dep't of Agric., No. 09-14568, slip. op., 2010 WL 2663201, at *7 (E.D.Mich. Jul. 2, 2010)). A federal court has the inherent power to vacate its own judgment upon proof that a fraud has been perpetrated upon the court. Demjanjuk, 10 F.3d at 358. Given the potency of this power, however, it must be exercised with restraint and discretion. Id. The party seeking relief under Rule 60 bears the burden of establishing the grounds for such relief by clear and convincing evidence. Info-Hold, 538 F.3d at 454 (Rule 60(b)(6)); Green v. Howes, No. 5:01-cv-60057, 2011 WL 4345210, at *1 (E.D.Mich. Sep. 16, 2011) (Rule 60(d)(3)).
Importantly, Demjanjuk's request for relief from judgment under all Rule 60 provisions are premised upon his contention that the Government's failure to disclose the internal FBI documents violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) and constituted a fraud upon the court.
Demjanjuk contends that the Government has an affirmative and ongoing obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, and that failure to do so automatically constitutes a due process violation. He argues that the internal March 1985 FBI documents constitute exculpatory or impeachment evidence that prosecutors concealed from the defense, and the alleged concealment constitutes prosecutorial misconduct rising to the level of a fraud on the court.
The argument that the Government had the obligation to disclose the FBI documents to Demjanjuk's defense team arises from Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).
While the prosecution must disclose exculpatory evidence (i.e., evidence favorable to the defendant), the prosecution has no obligation under Brady to make a complete and detailed accounting to the defense of all police investigatory work or information that is preliminary, challenged or speculative. See, e.g., Giles v. Maryland, 386 U.S. 66, 98, 87 S.Ct. 793, 17 L.Ed.2d 737 (1967); United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 109, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976); United States v. Stifel, 594 F.Supp. 1525, 1542 n. 15 (N.D.Ohio 1984); United States v. Peltier, 553 F.Supp. 890, 899 (D.N.D.1983). Evidence is "material" where there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281, 119 S.Ct. 1936. A reasonable probability is "a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985). The Supreme Court has held that "Brady materiality is not a strictly quantitative inquiry. Rather, it is more of a qualitative inquiry in which a reviewing court must ask whether the suppressed evidence casts sufficient doubt on a[ ] conviction that it puts the case `in a different light.'" Smith v. Metrish, 436 Fed.Appx. 554, 563 (6th Cir.2011) (quoting Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434-35, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995)). The mere possibility that an item of undisclosed information might have affected the outcome is insufficiently material. Peltier, 553 F.Supp. at 899 (citing Agurs, 427 U.S. at 110, 96 S.Ct. 2392). In short, "in order to fall within the scope of the Brady rule, the evidence must be both exculpatory and material." Caldwell v. Bell, 9 Fed.Appx. 472, 481 (6th Cir.2001) (citing Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375).
Demjanjuk asserts that the 2001 prosecution team purposely withheld the 1985 FBI documents in violation of Brady, and argues that the Court should consider that act to be just one more instance of prosecutorial misconduct dating back to the first denaturalization hearing — justifying further discovery, hearings and dismissal of this case. The Government denies that prosecutors knew about the FBI documents at the time of the 2001 trial. At any rate, the Government argues that there is no Brady violation because Special Agent Martin shared his concerns over the authenticity of the Trawniki card with Demjanjuk's counsel in the mid-1980's; thus, Demjanjuk was not precluded from taking advantage of whatever exculpatory value the documents had at the time of the 2001 trial. Even if the prosecution knew about the documents and withheld them, the Government contends there could be no Brady violation because Demjanjuk cannot show a reasonable probability that the information contained in those documents would have altered the court's decision. For reasons explained below, the Court finds that it does not matter whether the Government knew about the documents and failed to disclose them because the FBI documents are neither exculpatory nor material.
According to his affidavit, Special Agent Martin drafted the March 4, 1985 cover letter and memo in direct response to a request from FBI Headquarters for information bearing on the Government's efforts to have Demjanjuk denaturalized and
The Court finds that the cover letter and memo contain the speculation of an FBI agent in 1985, premised upon erroneous assumptions and mistaken beliefs, and made without any investigation whatsoever. As such, the FBI documents constitute nothing more than Martin's generalized theory about a possible scheme by the Soviets targetting anti-Soviet dissidents in America with no direct connection to John Demjanjuk. While the prosecution is obligated under Brady to disclose exculpatory evidence, it has no obligation to make a complete accounting to the defense of all police investigatory work or information that is merely speculative. Giles, 386 U.S. at 98, 87 S.Ct. 793; Agurs, 427 U.S. at 109, 96 S.Ct. 2392; Stifel, 594 F.Supp. at 1542 n. 15; Peltier, 553 F.Supp. at 899. Because the internal FBI documents are merely speculative, they are not exculpatory.
Even if the Court found otherwise, Demjanjuk must still show that the documents are material. In other words, he must show that the alleged nondisclosure was so serious there is a reasonable probability that, had the suppressed evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281, 119 S.Ct. 1936. This he cannot do.
Along with the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law issued by the court in 2002, the court also issued a Supplemental Opinion to explain its inability to give any substantial credence to Demjanjuk's contentions:
Demjanjuk, 2002 WL 544623, at *1. The court further explained:
Demjanjuk, 2002 WL 544623, at *4-5, aff'd, 367 F.3d 623 (6th Cir.2004), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 970, 125 S.Ct. 429, 160 L.Ed.2d 341 (2004).
The Court finds that Special Agent Martin's theory about a possible Soviet scheme targeting anti-Soviet dissidents is no match, quantitatively or qualitatively, for the considerable documentary evidence presented by the Government and supported by expert authentication in the 2001 trial, which evidence placed Demjanjuk in numerous concentration camps during the war. Metrish, 436 Fed.Appx. at 563; Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434-35, 115 S.Ct. 1555. And the mere possibility that an item of undisclosed information might have affected the outcome is insufficiently material. Peltier, 553 F.Supp. at 899; Agurs, 427 U.S. at 110, 96 S.Ct. 2392. The theory espoused in Martin's 1985 cover letter and memo are also distinct from the substance and mass of hard evidence the prosecution eventually admitted withholding in the first denaturalization proceeding, which evidence supported Demjanjuk's misidentification defense and sufficiently undermined confidence in the outcome of that proceeding (e.g., witness identifications of Ivan
Because the FBI documents lack materiality, their alleged concealment by the Government does not violate Brady. Against the backdrop of a public policy strongly favoring the finality of judgments, the Court concludes that the alleged failure to disclose the internal FBI documents does not violate Brady, would not have affected the outcome of this proceeding, does not constitute a fraud upon the court or a grave miscarriage of justice, and does not warrant the extraordinary relief Demjanjuk seeks under Rule 60.
It is important to remember that citizenship can be revoked if it was procured by concealment, or willful misrepresentation, of a material fact. John Demjanjuk has admitted that he willfully lied about his whereabouts during the war on his visa and immigration applications to gain entry to the United States. Despite numerous opportunities, Demjanjuk has never provided a single, consistent accounting of his whereabouts during the war years 1942 to 1945. On the other hand, the Government has provided clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence that Demjanjuk not only lied about his whereabouts during the war, but that he served as a guard at the Sobibor, Trawniki, Majdanek and Flossenburg concentration camps. Such service during the war made him ineligible as a matter of law for a displaced persons visa, rendering his naturalization illegally procured and subject to revocation.
The Government's first attempt to strip Demjanjuk of his citizenship was tainted by misconduct, and the federal courts remedied the situation by reversing the denaturalization and restoring Demjanjuk's citizenship. The second denaturalization proceeding did not suffer from the same problems, notwithstanding Demjanjuk's protestations to the contrary.
The only question before the undersigned today is whether the alleged failure to disclose the March 1985 FBI documents constitute a fraud on the court (i.e., extraordinary circumstances) justifying Rule 60 relief. For the reasons explained herein, the Court concludes that it does not. Accordingly, the Court
This case is before the Court on the Motion of John Demjanjuk to Reconsider Memorandum of Opinion and Order of December 20, 2011 ("Reconsideration Motion")
Motions for reconsideration are "`extraordinary in nature and, because they run contrary to notions of finality and repose, should be discouraged.'" Plaskon Elec. Materials, Inc. v. Allied-Signal, Inc., 904 F.Supp. 644, 669 (N.D.Ohio 1995) (quoting In Re August, 1993 Regular Grand Jury, 854 F.Supp. 1403, 1406 (S.D.Ind.1994)). "As such, motions for reconsideration are granted `very sparingly.'" Id. (quoting Bakari v. Beyer, 870 F.Supp. 85, 88 (D.N.J.1994)). While the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for a motion for reconsideration, the Sixth Circuit has held such motions
The Court has reviewed the Reconsideration Motion, the opposition brief (Doc # : 239) and the reply (Doc # : 240), and concludes that there is nothing in Demjanjuk's Motion which warrants the Court changing its December 20, 2011 decision denying his Rule 60(b) Motion without a hearing. Accordingly, the Court