those involving fraud and those involving grave acts of baseness and pravy the petitioners conviction in this case for tampering with a witness under oregon law is not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude because commission of this crime does not necessarily require fraud or false a vacation nor does it necessarily work cryer vait base or deprived behavior under the plain language of the oregon statute no fraud or false vacation is required for a conviction of the statute criminalizes inducing a witness to offer false testimony or unlawfully withhold any testimony but prong b criminalizes only inducing or attempting to induce a witness to be absent from official proceedings there is no requirement of an induction to offer false testimony or otherwise engage in fraud likewise fraud is not implicit in the statute the escobar court explains that intent to defraud is implicit in the nature of a crime when the individual makes false statements in order to procure something of value however the court goes on to say that where the only benefit the individual obtains is to impede the enforcement of the law the crime does not categorically involve moral turpitude and the court emphasized that when the outcome is thwarting or interfering with the orderly administration of justice this is insufficient for a crime to be classified categorically as a crime involving moral turpitude further the organ statute does not necessarily require bass viol or deprived  behavior what is crucial in this definition is that the baseness or depravity be so far contrary to moral law that it gives rise to moral outrage and in escobar be lynch the court noted that non fraudulent cia mts will almost always involve an intent to injure someone an actual injury or a protected class of victims and the organ statute on its face requires none of these three things further no willfulness or evil intent is required the statutes plain language requires only a mens rea of knowingly not intentionally and this court has repeatedly held that knowledge without a specific intent to obstruct justice is not sufficient to classify a crime as a crime involving moral t the government argues that intent is implied but this is incorrect and it's contrary to both the plain language of the statute and presidential case law and a case involving misprision of a felony under federal law the ninth circuit found that the statute required no intent to conceal or obstruct justice only a knowledge of the felony and it did not agree that concealing a felony itself involved evil intent the court held that this was not categorically a c i m t because it did not involve a level of baseness or depravity that was so far contrary to moral law that it gave rise to moral outrage in soto rodriguez recent unpublished ninth circuit case this court examined the washington witness tampering statute which is similarly worded to the oregon statute and that court distinguish merely bad conduct from truly unconscionable conduct and found that in order to convict the prosecutor only had to show knowledge that the person being tampered with would be called as a witness but not a specific intent to obstruct justice and the court in sotto rodriguez also found that the crime was not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude the oregon statute at issue here requires only knowledge it does not require an intent to obstruct justice or any other evil intent unlike the washington and california statutes it is therefore not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude the board's comparison of the oregon statute to the federal witness tampering statute is also iranians and misleading the board found that the oregon statute was sufficiently similar to a federal witness tampering statute which is included under the umbrella of obstruction of justice offense the federal statute requires intimidation threats corrupt persuasion or misleading conduct none of which are required by the plain language of the oregon statute the federal statute importantly also requires an intent to influence delay or prevent testimony that is not required by the oregon statute which only has a mens rea of knowingly further oregon l does criminalize obstruction of justice in a separate statute section one sixty two point two three five and that requires either an intent to obstruct by several means intimidation force physical or economic interference or obstacle or an intent to defraud those are specifically not elements of the witness tampering statute at issue here the board also relied upon obstruction of justice cases that involve fraud or perjury but neither of those as noted are elements of the statue at issue here in two recent decisions one published the ninth circuit has held that tampering with the witness where the only mens rea are required is knowledge and not intent is not categorically a crime involving moral t yes your honor we are initial argument was that the statute was divisible since progs a and b appeared to be to evolve different elements and therefore you would use the modified categorical only to determine under which problem he was convicted and then go back and apply the categorical approach to pronk b as this court is aware we did provide a twenty eight j letter on a recent oregon case involving merger that might imply that in fact the statute is indivisible and that there are different ways of committing the statute but it is an individual indivisible statute but we can still look to probably be because if it is an individual state in the visible statute excuse me you still look to what the minimum conduct required for conviction is and under prong b we argued that the minimum conduct required for conviction does not rise to the level of court my name is jennifer singer and i represent the united states attorney general in this matter in light of escobar and so to rodriguez it appears that petitioners conviction for witness tampering under oregon law may not qualif t and i apologize for not bringing this to the attention of the court earlier than last week but in light of the motion was i did yes your honor to remain yes and before you again i am requesting that the court remand the case to the agency so that the agency may consider petitioner's remove ability and eligibility for relief in light of so to rodriguez and escobar that's essentially the government's argument  a court we find unnecessary for the court decide whether or not it is a cia mt and ask that the court remand for the agency to decide in light of those decisions but if the court were to decide whether the organ witness tampering statute is a intent required for a cia mt but in the escobar case it seemed that the court found specific intent to obstruct justice with insufficient that intent to injure was required so i acknowledge that escobar was a published case  in making this assessment under the supreme court's to our decision and that's progeny in the ninth circuit that we just look at the elements of the  we could we can say that because he initially threatened his spouse then later pleaded with third not to go testify that there was an implied threat that he's going to harmon spouse if she testifies that's correct under the supreme court decision and it's this court only looks to the elements of the statute and just looking at the elements that in the part b that covers trying to get someone to be absent from the court room as opposed to giving false testimony why would that be if a c i m t if like a person could just in substance husband could be telling his wife please forgive me and don't subsection a or b that those are necessarily matt and that is why i would ask that the court remain the case to the agency and so then well why should we remember if it's if it's clear that he should have relief and not be  just that he's not automatically excluded from considering cancellation of removal and then proceeding as to whether it to decide that it's not a c m t then it would have to go back to the agency for determination of relief or the court could not decide the c m t issue and send it back to the board and then the board would decide in light of these cases remove ability and then depending on reserve some time that you made that needed a lot of it but you know your honour's i just wanted to briefly address the issue of re manned we believe that this court can and should make a decision on whether the conviction is for a crime turpitude we don't believe remained is appropriate the board already considered the legal issue in this case in the first instance and the two new ninth circuit cases don't create a new law or set out a new framework for analysis they followed what we believe to be already settled case law in both the board and the circuit regarding what is required for a crime to be considered a crime involving moral turpitude and these two new cases simply clarify in advance this preexisting case law however they don't create a new law the board analyze the statute extensively we simply believe they did it wrong and came to the wrong conclusion so we believe that there's no need to send it back so they can consider it again we believe that this court can properly decide that it's not a crime involving moral turpitude and in that case remained would be back so that the petitioner could apply for cancellation of removal before the immigration judge i imagine there are other immigrants who are felt people who are in the same situation as mister i would imagine i haven't i don't know that for sure but yes i don't think he's the only immigrant in oregon to have ever been convicted under the statute valley shall be submitted and will go on to the next case on a calendar also on immigration case