Safe Havens

(C)  Sexual abuse of a minor and moral turpitude considerations.  A noncitizen can be found deportable if convicted under certain circumstances of a crime involving moral turpitude.  See § § 7.105, infra.  Even the more mild offenses that combine lewd intent toward a minor, such as California Penal Code § 647.6(a), the “molest or annoy” statute considered in Pallares-Galan, may be held to involve moral turpitude.  Although not all conduct prohibited by California Penal Code § 647.6(a)  necessarily involves moral turpitude, like the urinating in public example cited by the Ninth Circuit, the fact that this offense requires that the defendant’s acts must be sexually motivated[830] is likely to be held turpitudinous.  Some sexually motivated acts committed against a child are crimes of moral turpitude both because the conduct could generally be said to “shock the public conscience as being inherently base, vile, or depraved, and contrary to the accepted rules of morality,” and because such acts are “accompanied by a vicious motive or a corrupt mind.”[831]  Others may not.

            Violation of California Penal Code § 288(a) has been found to be a crime involving moral turpitude in the context of disbarment.[832]  In United States v. Baron-Medina,[833] the Ninth Circuit found that “[t]he use of young children as objects of sexual gratification is corrupt, improper, and contrary to good order.”  A violation of California Penal Code § 288(a) is therefore likely an crime involving moral turpitude for immigration purposes as well.  See generally § 8.77, infra.

[830] Ibid. 

[831] See Hamdan v. INS, 98 F.3d 183, 186 (5th Cir. 1996).

[832] In re Lesansky, 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 409 (2001), as modified. 

[833] United States v. Baron-Medina, 187 F.3d 1144, 1147 (9th Cir. 1999).