Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02606/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02606-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ali Reza Jalilian
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

t1 lLB0 

l.'-:lietJ ~tatt!t' Courc (;)f AprH;?~b 

·r enth Cir<:1.1it 

~EB 1 3 1990 

ROBERT L. .HOECKER 

Clerk 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

v. 

ALI 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

) No. 88-2606 

) 

REZA JALILIAN, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellant. ) 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. CR-88-48-R) 

Susan M. Otto, Asst. Federal Public Defender, Western District of 

Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Okla., for Defendant-Appellant. 

John E. Green (Robert E. Mydans, Interim U.S. Attorney, with him 

on the brief), First Asst. U.S. Attorney, Western District of 

Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Okla., for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before TACHA, GARTH*, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

TACHA, Circuit Judge. 

* The Honorable Leonard I. Garth, Circuit Judge, United States 

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 88-2606 Document: 010110159065 Date Filed: 02/13/1990 Page: 1 
( 

Ali Reza Jalilian appeals from the order of the district 

court requiring him to leave the country as a condition of his 

probation. Jalilian contends that the district court exceeded its 

authority and abused its discretion. We reverse. 

I• 

In May 1983, Jalilian was living in Norman, Oklahoma with his 

uncle, Yadollah Kavakebi. Kavakebi received an income tax refund 

check in. the mail. Jalilian took the check, signed his uncle's 

name, and kept the money. Jalilian was subsequently indicted on 

March 8, 1988 on charges of forgery of an endorsement and uttering 

a forged check, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 495. These 

charges ~ere later reduced, and Jalilian pleaded guilty to a 

charge of converting a treasury check to his own use, in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. section 641. At the time he pleaded guilty, Jalilian 

was not lega~ly authorized to be in the United States. 

Jalilian was sentenced on August 15, 1988. The district 

court suspended the sentence and placed Jalilian on probation for 

two years with the special condition that "defendant is to return 

to his native country within 45 days and shall not return to the 

United States until legally authorized to do so." Within ten days 

of sentencing, Jalilian filed a motion to correct the sentence by 

striking the special condition. The government did not object. 

The district court amended its order, dropping the requirement 

that Jalilian "return to his native country," but still requiring 

him to leave the country within forty-five days. The district 

court reasoned that permitting an illegal alien to remain in the 

country constituted a continuing violation of federal law. 

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II. 

The issue presented on appeal is whether the district court 

exceeded its authority or abused its discretion by imposing a 

probation condition ordering Jalilian to leave the country and 

prohibiting him from reentering unless he obtained proper legal 

authorization. We review the legality of a sentence de novo. 

United States v. Duncan, 870 F.2d 1532, 1535 (10th Cir.), cert. 

denied, --- U.S. ---, 110 S. Ct. 264. (1989). If the sentence is 

legal, we review probation determinations for abuse of discretion. 

See United States Y._:_ Jack, 868 F.2d 1186, 1188 (10th Cir.), cert. 

denied, --- U.S. ---, 109 S. Ct. 3171 (1989). Although Jalilian 

challenged the constitutional power of a federal court to require 

him to leave the country, we will not reach the constitutionai 

issue if there is some other ground upon which the case may be 

disposed. See United States v. Campos-Serrano, 404 U.S. 293, 295 

n.3 (1971). 

A. 

The sentencing court ordered Jalilian to leave the country 

pursuant to 18 u.s.c. section 3563, which allows the court to 

impose conditions of probation that are reasonably related to the 

purposes of sentencing contained in 18 U.S.C. section 3553. 

Jalilian contends that the order was a de facto deportation order 

that exceeds the authority granted by section 3563. We agree. 

The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that 

"over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of 

Congress more complete than it is over" the admission of 

aliens. Our cases "have long recognized the power to 

expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign 

attribute exercised by the Government's political 

departments largely immune from judicial control." 

3 

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Fiallo~ Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792 (1977) (citations omitted) 

(quoting respectively Oceanic Steam Navigation Co.~ Stranahan, 

214 U.S. 320, 339 (1909), and Shaughnessy~ United States ex rel. 

Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 210 (1953)). Congress, in turn, has 

delegated exclusive authority to the Attorney General to order the 

deportation of aliens pursuant to 8 U.S.C. section 1252, which 

expressly provides: 

A special inquiry officer shall conduct proceedings 

under this section to determine the deportability of any 

alien, and .•• as authorized by the Attorney General, 

shall make determinations, including orders of 

deportation. In any case in which an alien is 

ordered deported from the United States under the 

prov1s1ons of this chapter, or of any other law or 

treaty, the decision of the Attorney General shall be 

final. 

8 u.s.c. § 1252(b) (emphasis added). The clear import of this 

language is that the Attorney General's authority extends to the 

deportation of any alien under the laws or treaties of the United 

States. A court's sua sponte order deporting an alien outside of 

the appropriate immigration context is inconsistent with this 

statutory scheme. A district court may, of course, recommend to 

the Attorney General that an alien convicted of a crime of moral 

turpitude not be deported. 8 u.s.c. § 125l(b). No statute 

provides, however, that a ?istrict court may recommend or, as it 

did here, direct that an alien be deported. Such an order raises 

difficult questions about possible conflicts between judicial 

independence and the Attorney General's final authority under 

section 1252. The possibility of such conflict suggests that the 

probation statute, 18 u.s.c. § 3563, should not be read to 

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authorize de facto deportation orders. As the Third Circuit noted 

in a similar context, 

[a] condition of probation may not circumvent another 

statutory scheme. Whether and how to initiate 

deportation procedures is exclusively the province of 

the Attorney General, through the Immigration and 

Naturalization Service. 

United States~ Abushaar, 761 F.2d 954, 960-61 (3d Cir. 1985) 

(citations and footnote omitted). 

This result accords with the determinations of other 

circuits. The Ninth Circuit, in United States~ Castillo-Burgos, 

501 F.2d 217 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1010 (1974), 

reversed a district court order permanently deporting a defendant. 

The court reasoned: 

Congress has enacted laws governing the admission, 

expulsion, and deportation of aliens, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1181-

1255. Those laws delegate authority to order 

· ·deportation to the Attorney General and not to the 

judiciary. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1255. Nowhere in this 

detailed statutory scheme is there a provision for a 

court to deport aliens sua sponte. 

Id. at 219-20. The Second Circuit reached a similar conclusion in 

United States~ Hernandez, 588 F.2d 346 (2d Cir. 1978), where the 

court held that "the district court exceeded its authority by the 

imposition of the conditions with reference to departure from and 

reentry into the United States .... " Id. at 352. We find this 

interpretation of Congress' statutory scheme persuasive. Given 

the nearly plenary authority of Congress in this area, the 

comprehensive scheme for admission and deportation of aliens in 8 

U.S.C. sections 1101-1362, and the clear delegation of primary 

jurisdiction to the Attorney General in section 1252, we hold that 

5 

Appellate Case: 88-2606 Document: 010110159065 Date Filed: 02/13/1990 Page: 5 
the district court exceeded its statutory authority under 18 

U.S.C. section 3563 by ordering Jalilian to leave the country. 1 

B. 

One final matter remains for our consideration. The district 

court's order also prohibited Jalilian from reentering "the United 

States until legally authorized to do so. 11 Although it is unclear 

that Jalilian contests this provision, we determine that the 

provision does not exceed the district court's authority. Such a 

condition does not interfere with the Attorney General's exclusive 

_power over the admission, exclusion, and deportation of aliens. 

If Jalilian were to be deported or leave the country voluntarily, 

he is still free to apply for permission to reenter, and to return 

if he receives it. The determination of whether to deport and 

whether to permit reentry shouid Jalilian be depor~ed or leave 

voluntarily, however, would remain in the hands of the Attorney 

General, where Congress determined the decision should lie, and 

not in the judiciary. We thus hold that a probation condition 

forbidding the probationer from reentering the United States 

without proper legal authorization does not exceed the district 

court's authority, and we agree with the First, Ninth, and Fifth 

Circuits that such a condition is not a per se abuse of 

discretion, see United States Y...:_ Mercedes-Mercedes, 851 F.2d 529, 

530-31 (1st Cir. 1988); United States v. McLeod, 608 F.2d 1076, 

1 We do not reach the question of whether a district -court may 

approve an agreement by a defendant to leave the country 

voluntarily in exchange for a reduced or suspended sentence, as 

occurred in United States v. Janko, 865 F.2d 1246, 1247 (11th Cir. 

1989) (per curiam). 

6 

Appellate Case: 88-2606 Document: 010110159065 Date Filed: 02/13/1990 Page: 6 
/ 1078 (5th Cir .. 1979) (per curiam); Castillo-Burgos, 501 F.2d at 

220. 

III. 

The district court exceeded its authority under the probation 

statute when it ordered Jalilian to leave the country. The 

district court did not err, however, by requiring Jalilian to 

reenter the country only with the approval of appropriate 

authorities. We thus REVERSE and REMAND for resentencing in 

accordance with this opinion. 

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