Ruiz-Vidal v. Lynch, 803 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. Oct. 9, 2015) (immigration court could look to originally charged count to identify controlled substance where noncitizen pleaded guilty to a lesser included offense; Ruiz"Vidal's plea"which references a specific count in the Information"and the Information, which references a specific controlled substance, provide clear and convincing evidence that Ruiz"Vidal was convicted of a removable offense.).

NOTE: This case does not necessarily apply to all pleas to lesser included offenses. In making this holding, based on the concept of lesser included offense, the Court notes:

[b]ecause possession of each different drug under California Health and Safety Code 11377(a) constitutes an entirely separate offense, Coronado, 759 F.3d at 985, the indictment charged him with the specific offense of sale of methamphetamine, not sale of a controlled substance. A conviction for possession of any other drug couldn't be a lesser included offense to sale of methamphetamine. The only way a conviction for possession of a controlled substance can be a lesser included offense to the crime of sale of methamphetamine is if the drug the defendant is convicted of possessing is methamphetamine. Hence, so long as there is clear and convincing evidence that Ruiz"Vidal's crime of conviction was a lesser included offense to Count 1, we can conclude he was convicted of possessing methamphetamine.

The court distinguishes Cisneros"Perez v. Gonzales, 465 F.3d 386 (9th Cir.2006) (as amended), on the basis that the judgment record didn't establish that Cisneros"Perez necessarily pleaded no contest to the allegations in the original complaint because [i]t is not stated in any of the cognizable documents that the conviction for violating [the lesser included offense] stems from the same incident as the charges in the criminal complaint. Id. at 393 (emphasis added). Judge Reinhardt wrote a strong dissent.