Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants

(C)  Non-Immigration Collateral Consequences Preclude Mootness.  Other collateral consequences sufficient to forestall mootness include inability to engage in certain businesses, to serve as a juror, and to vote.[157]  Even though traditional criminal custody has expired, the issue of the validity of the conviction or sentence is not moot so long as the petitioner still suffers other collateral consequences, such as stigma, the blot on his or her criminal history, the existence of a prior conviction that might enhance future sentences (in the event s/he were convicted of some new offense in the future), vulnerability to impeachment as a witness for a crime involving moral turpitude, and the like, completely independent of any immigration consequences.  These non-immigration related collateral consequences are ample to forestall any finding that the present proceeding is moot, even apart from the immigration issues, and even after custody has expired.

[157] See Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234 (1968); Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 391 n.4 (1985) (collateral consequences sufficient to preclude mootness include possibility of impeachment in future judicial proceeding, possibility of prosecution under a persistent offender statute, or possibility of an enhanced sentence for future crimes); United States v. Walgren, 885 F.2d 1417, 1421 (9th Cir. 1989) (presumption of collateral consequences); cf. Chacon v. Wood, 36 F.3d 1459, 1463 (9th Cir. 1994) (dictum); see also Larche v. Simons, 53 F.3d 1068, 1069 (9th Cir. 1995).