Safe Havens

(B)    Convictions that are Not Crimes of Moral Turpitude.  A conviction of an offense that does not constitute a crime of moral turpitude does not trigger deportation under either CMT conviction of deportation.  Courts have held that moral turpitude “refers generally to conduct that shocks the public conscience as being inherently base, vile, or depraved, contrary to the rules of morality and the duties owed between man and man, either one’s fellow man or society in general.”[937]  One common definition is “an act of baseness, vileness, or depravity.”[938]

Gordon and Mailman have stated:

Some authorities have said that the crime must be accompanied by an evil intent or a depraved nature. One court has declared that under the deportation statute the question is whether “the alien has a criminal heart and a criminal tendency.”  Other courts have declared that the offense must be intrinsically and morally wrong. . . .  It has also been said that the statute contemplates “an act of baseness and depravity contrary to accepted moral standards,” and that in dealing with a patently “heinous” crime “willful conduct and moral turpitude are synonymous terms.”  Courts have also stated that whether or not a crime involves moral turpitude “depends upon the inherent nature of the crime, as defined in the statute concerned, rather than the circumstances surrounding the transgression.” The turpitudinous nature of an offense may not be altered by the fact that it may have been motivated by economic hardship. Some courts have held that crimes of moral turpitude typically involve fraud, but acts of baseness or depravity contrary to accepted moral standards are also included in the category.[939]

Black’s Law Dictionary defined the term as follows:

an act of baseness, vileness, or the depravity in private and social duties which man owes to his fellow man, or to society in general, contrary to accepted and customary rule of right and duty between man and man. . . .  Act or behavior that gravely violates moral sentiment or accepted moral standards of community and is a morally culpable quality held to be present in some criminal offenses as distinguished from others. . . .  The quality of a crime involving grave infringement of the moral sentiment of the community as distinguished from statutory mala prohibita.[940] 

Some cases define an act of moral turpitude as one which “grievously offends the moral code of mankind.”[941]

The most comprehensive source of information on what offenses are, and are not, crimes of moral turpitude is N. Tooby, J. Rollin & J. Foster, Crimes of Moral Turpitude (2005).  The chief value of Crimes of Moral Turpitude is that it serves to collect and organize the immigration and federal court decisions defining crimes of moral turpitude, including all decisions handed down since 1940, and all of the most important decisions defining the term decided prior to that date.  It includes a detailed table of contents, a detailed subject-matter index, and an indexed Table of Decisions attached to that volume as Appendix C.  This material was too voluminous to include in the present work, which focuses on safe havens, rather than on providing all information on CMTs.

The following types of offenses have generally been held not to be crimes of moral turpitude, and so would constitute partial safe havens:

(1)  Regulatory offenses, which are wrong only because someone passed a law against them, are generally not crimes of moral turpitude.  See § 7.107, infra.

(2)  Offenses with certain criminal intents have generally been held not to be crimes of moral turpitude: strict liability, general intent, intent to break the law, negligence, gross negligence, sometimes recklessness, willfulness or knowledge, intent to commit an offense that itself is not a CMT, and sometimes malice.  See § § 7.109-122, infra.

[937] Medina v. United States, 259 F.3d 220, 227 (4th Cir. 2001), quoting Matter of Danesh, 19 I. & N. Dec. 669, 670 (BIA 1988). 

[938] See United States v. Smith, 420 F.2d 428, 431 (5th Cir. 1970); K. BRADY, California Criminal Law And Immigration § § 4.8-4.9 (2004); C. Gordon, S. Mailman, & S. Yale-Loehr, Immigration Law and Procedure § 71.05[1][d][i] (2004); Franklin v. INS, 72 F.3d 571 (8th Cir. 1995); Wing v. United States, 46 F.2d 755 (7th Cir. 1931); Tutrone v. Shaughnessy, 160 F.Supp. 433 (S.D.N.Y. 1958); Matter of Franklin, 20 I. & N. Dec. 867 (BIA 1994); Matter of Mueller, 11 I. & N. Dec. 268 (BIA 1965).  See also Matter of Short, 20 I. & N. Dec. 136, 139 (BIA 1989) (“Moral turpitude is a nebulous concept, which refers generally to conduct that shocks the public conscience”).

[939] C. Gordon, S. Mailman, & S. Yale-Loehr, Immigration Law and Procedure § 71.05[1][d][i] (2004) (footnotes omitted).

[940] Black’s Law Dictionary 1008-09 (6th ed. 1990) (citations omitted).  This definition originated in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, Rawles 3d Revision. Annot., What Constitutes “Crime Involving Moral Turpitude” Within Meaning of § § 212(a)(9) and 241(a)(5) of Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § § 1182(a)(9), 1251(a)(4)), and Similar Predecessor Statutes Providing for Exclusion or Deportation of Aliens Convicted of Such Crime, 23 A.L.R. Fed. 480, § 3, n.11 (1975).

[941] See Coykendall v. Skrmetta, 22 F.2d 120 (5th Cir. 1927); United States v. Carrollo, 30 F.Supp. 3 (D. Mo. 1931); United States ex rel. De George v. Jordan, 183 F.2d 768 (7th Cir. 1950), rev’d on other grounds, 341 U.S. 223, 71 S.Ct. 703 (1951).