Criminal Defense of Immigrants

(D)  Crime of Moral Turpitude.  The CMT ground of inadmissibility lists attempt and conspiracy, but no other non-substantive offenses.  The CMT grounds of deportability do not list any non-substantive offenses.   

A number of older cases hold that some non-substantive offenses, committed with intent to commit a CMT, are themselves CMTs, but these decisions generally predate the more recent decisions recognizing that various non-substantive offenses do not fall within a ground of deportation when Congress specifically included others, such as attempt and conspiracy.  Still other decisions have found that the non-substantive offense is, by itself, a crime of moral turpitude regardless of the underlying offense.[279]  See § 20.24.

[279] See, e.g., Itani v. Ashcroft, 298 F.3d 1213 (11th Cir. Apr. 22, 2002) (federal conviction for misprision of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 4, constitutes a crime of moral turpitude for purposes of triggering deportation).  See § 20.24, supra, for arguments this case was wrongly decided.