Safe Havens

(B)  Crimes of Moral Turpitude.[27]

Third Circuit:

Knapik v. Ashcroft, 384 F.3d 84 (3d Cir. Sept. 17, 2004) (New York conviction of reckless endangerment, in violation of New York Penal Law § 120.25, providing that a “person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the first degree when, under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person,” constitutes a crime of moral turpitude for deportation purposes; attempted reckless endangerment is not a crime of moral turpitude because it is not a crime).

The Third Circuit held that, even though a conviction under the New York reckless endangerment statute constitutes a crime involving moral turpitude, a conviction of “attempted reckless endangerment” does not involve moral turpitude.  The court found that it is logically impossible for a person to intend to commit a criminally reckless act, and therefore that the “crime of attempted reckless endangerment is nonexistent since it is a nonintent offense.”[28]

[27] See N. Tooby, J. Rollin & J. Foster, Crimes of Moral Turpitude § 9.18 (2005).

[28] Knapik v. Ashcroft, 384 F.3d 84, 91 (3d Cir. Sept. 17, 2004), citing People v. Trepanier, 84 A.D.2d 374, 380 (N.Y.App.Div. 1982).