Criminal Defense of Immigrants

(A)  In General.  As in planning to enter a plea, counsel must plan the sentence proceedings so as to avoid making any factual admissions that could damage the defendant’s posture during any later immigration proceedings.  This means investigating the effect of any possible admissions on the nature of the conviction that could trigger deportability, inadmissibility, or disqualification from eligibility for relief in immigration proceedings.  It also means avoiding (a) factual admissions by the defendant (or, sometimes, defense counsel) that can trigger conduct-based immigration consequences; and (b) factual admissions of committing the elements of a crime of moral turpitude or controlled substances offense.  See § § 8.63, supra, 18.8, infra.

                These admissions can occur in three primary sentence contexts:

                (1)  Defense sentence materials, such as written legal argument or evidentiary materials, including judicial notice of court records, declarations establishing facts of importance in the sentence process, written statements by the defendant, and the like; see § 10.10, infra.

                (2)  Statements of the defendant (or, possibly, defense counsel, made during the probation interview), see § 10.11, infra, and

                (3)  Allocution, or statements of the defendant (or, possibly, defense counsel, made during the sentence hearing), see § 10.12, infra.