Criminal Defense of Immigrants

(E)  Crime of Moral Turpitude.  Failure to register as a sex offender, in violation of California Penal Code § 290(g)(1), for example, can be committed by merely forgetting to register.[152]  However, the DHS has been charging failure to register as a offender as a crime of moral turpitude.  This seems erroneous.  The statute punishes what should be considered a classic example of a regulatory offense, which has no “evil intent” requirement whatsoever.[153] In a very poorly reasoned decision, however, the BIA held that a California conviction of willful failure to register by a sex offender who has been previously apprised of the obligation to register, in violation of Penal Code § 290(g)(1), is a crime involving moral turpitude.[154]  This decision should be reversed by the Ninth Circuit, and any other circuit to consider whether a conviction under an analogous statute constitutes a crime of moral turpitude, since there is no reason failure to remember to register, or even refusing to register, should be considered a crime of moral turpitude.

[152] People v. Barker, 34 Cal.4th 345, 18 Cal.Rptr.3d 260 (2004).

[153] See § 20.22, infra.

[154] Matter of Tobar-Lobo, 24 I. & N. Dec. 143 (BIA 2007).