A Hawaii dolphin therapist’s case could shape the James Comey and Leticia James appeal

by Collin Callahan, Pacific Legal Foundation, March 12, 2026

Six months ago, James Comey and Letitia James had likely never heard of PLF client Eliza Wille or her dolphin therapy practice in Kona, Hawaii. Now, as the government fights to revive their indictments before the Fourth Circuit, their fates are closely tied to the psychotherapist’s legal battle to save her business.

Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief this week in the consolidated appeal of United States v. Comey and United States v. James. The case marks the first time the Fourth Circuit will apply a legal test it created in Wille v. Lutnick — the case PLF brought on Eliza’s behalf. PLF is urging the court to apply that precedent and reject the government’s attempts to salvage the indictments through after-the-fact ratification.

Eliza Wille’s fight to save her practice

Eliza Wille incorporated dolphin encounters into her psychotherapy practice in Kona. For patients who struggle in traditional talk-therapy settings, these experiences with Hawaii’s spinner dolphins have created breakthroughs that other approaches could not. Eliza built her practice around this work over the course of a decade, carefully, respectfully, and on the dolphins’ terms. She and her patients met the dolphins in the morning when the spinners are most active and near shore, letting the dolphins initiate contact.

Dolphin-assisted therapy is a form of experiential therapy, designed for patients who can’t access their emotions in a traditional office setting. Over ten years of practice, Eliza watched these encounters become turning points in her patients’ mental health journeys.

Then a low-level NOAA official issued a sweeping rule banning swim-with-dolphins experiences across Hawaii. With the stroke of a pen, Eliza’s practice and an entire industry faced destruction. The official, a career employee, had never been properly appointed to wield that kind of authority, which the Constitution’s Appointments Clause vests in Senate-confirmed officers.

Represented by PLF, Eliza sued. Although it ultimately ruled against Eliza, the Fourth Circuit established a strong framework for evaluating whether the government can use ratification — an after-the-fact approval by a superior official — to fix an Appointments Clause defect. The court determined an official can only ratify actions that could have been properly delegated to the person who took them. If that person didn’t hold a position capable of receiving the delegated authority, the ratification fails.

Why Eliza’s case matters for Comey and James

That framework now sits at the center of a closely watched appeal.

Last fall, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Lindsey Halligan as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan, acting as the prosecutor, secured grand jury indictments against Comey on charges of making false statements to Congress and against James on charges of bank fraud. Both defendants challenged Halligan’s authority, arguing she had not been lawfully appointed.

Anticipating that the courts might agree, the Attorney General took two steps to try to cure the defect: she ratified Halligan’s actions after the fact, and she retroactively appointed Halligan as a Special Attorney. Neither worked. In November, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled that Halligan’s appointment violated both the Appointments Clause and the federal vacancy statute, rejected the ratification and the retroactive appointment, and dismissed both indictments.

The district court relied on the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Eliza’s case to strike down the ratification.

In its opinion, the court captured the stakes of the government’s position: accepting it would allow the government to “send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact.”

The government appealed to the Fourth Circuit, and PLF filed its amicus brief to ensure the court applies Wille correctly. Because Halligan did not lawfully hold a position that could receive delegated authority to seek indictments, the Attorney General cannot ratify those actions retroactively. The retroactive appointment fails under longstanding principles against retroactive government action, principles the Supreme Court has enforced for decades.

The Appointments Clause protects everyone

PLF has long fought to enforce the Appointments Clause as a check on unaccountable government power. That work is grounded in a simple conviction: the Constitution requires that officials who wield significant authority answer to the people through the appointment process. Whether the result is a regulation that shuts down a therapy practice in Hawaii or an indictment in a federal courthouse in Virginia, the constitutional violation is the same.

“The district court got it right when it said the government’s theory would let a private citizen walk into a grand jury room and secure an indictment with nothing more than after-the-fact approval,” said PLF attorney Michael Poon. “The Constitution’s procedures protect us from arbitrary governance, and government officials can’t dodge those requirements through ratification. The Fourth Circuit should affirm that principle in this case.”