Case Explained: USA V. JACKSON

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Filed: 2026-08-17 Docket: 2:25-cr-00240- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order disqualifying Sigal Chattah from supervising the prosecutions of three defendants, holding that the Attorney General cannot bypass Senate confirmation requirements by designating an individual as a first assistant to a vacant U.S. Attorney office after the vacancy has already occurred. The court applied the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA), specifically 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1), ruling that the statute’s automatic succession provision applies only to the first assistant serving at the exact moment a vacancy arises, not to a person appointed to that role after the vacancy exists. Furthermore, the court held that the FVRA serves as the exclusive means for temporarily authorizing an acting official under 5 U.S.C. § 3347(a), thereby prohibiting the Attorney General from circumventing these limits by delegating all functions and duties of the U.S. Attorney to a single person via general delegation statutes such as 28 U.S.C. § 515. The court dismissed the defendants’ cross-appeals challenging the denial of their motions to dismiss the indictments for lack of appellate jurisdiction, concluding that the question of whether Chattah was lawfully appointed is not inextricably intertwined with the remedial question of whether the indictments must be dismissed, as the latter does not require a resolution of the former. Consequently, the disqualification order stands, but the indictments remain valid and the cases proceed without dismissal. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.