Crimes of Moral Turpitude

(A)

In General.  The principle that a criminal court order vacating a conviction as legally invalid eliminates the immigration consequences of the conviction has not been altered by the IIRAIRA new definition of conviction.[30]  For example, the Ninth Circuit has reaffirmed this principle:

The INS concedes, and we agree, that Congress did not intend that a conviction subsequently overturned on the merits (either because of a finding of insufficient evidence or because of a basic procedural inadequacy, such as a violation of the right to counsel), could serve as the basis for deportation.  Thus, the INS acknowledges that a court’s subsequent treatment of a conviction, after it has been entered, may in some cases serve to prohibit its use for immigration purposes.[31]

In a thoughtful analysis of the context and content of the new definition of conviction, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the purpose of the new definition was to alter the nature of the disposition that is considered a conviction in the first place, rather than to change any part of the law affecting the circumstances under which a conviction would be considered to have been eliminated by some later judicial action.[32]

[30] INA § 101(a)(48)(A), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48)(A).

[31] Lujan-Armendariz v. INS, 222 F.3d 728, 747 (9th Cir. 2000) (footnote 30 omitted).

[32] “Instead, the purpose of the amendment [i.e., the new statutory definition of ‘conviction’] appears to have been to establish the time at which a particular type of proceeding, specifically, deferred adjudication, results in a conviction for immigration purposes -- not to alter the long-standing rule that a conviction entered but subsequently vacated or set aside cannot serve as the basis for a deportation order.”  Lujan-Armendariz v. INS, 222 F.3d 728, 745 (9th Cir. 2000).