Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01134/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01134-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Chezan
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 16‐1134

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL CHEZAN,

Defendant‐Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 10 CR 905 — Charles R. Norgle, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JUNE 2, 2016 — DECIDED JULY 20, 2016

____________________

Before POSNER and SYKES, Circuit Judges, and YANDLE,

District Judge.

*

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The defendant pleaded guilty in

2011 to aiding and abetting marriage fraud in violation of 18

U.S.C. § 1546(a), and in 2016 was sentenced to three years in

prison. Not being an American citizen he is very likely to be

deported upon completion of his prison sentence, because

 

* Of the Southern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.

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2 No. 16‐1134   

marriage fraud is an aggravated felony if the defendant is

sentenced to at least twelve months in prison for it, 8 U.S.C.

§ 1101(a)(43)(P), and a noncitizen convicted of an aggravated

felony is deportable, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), and ineligi‐

ble for cancellation of removal, asylum, or naturalization.

See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1229b(a)(3), 1158(b)(2)(B)(i); 8 C.F.R.

§ 316.10(b)(1)(ii).

The defendant’s principal argument is that he received

ineffective assistance of counsel in the district court because

he was not warned that pleading guilty would be virtually

certain to result in his deportation. Had he been told, he

says, he would have forgone the guilty plea and gone to trial

in the hope of being acquitted. And so he asks us to let him

withdraw his guilty plea and take a chance on a trial.

One of his lawyers, Justin Burton, was an immigration

specialist. Thomas Durkin, his other lawyer, is not and relied

on Burton to advise him and the defendant of the possible

consequences for the defendant of being convicted. See Pa‐

dilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 369 (2010). Burton pointed out

to his client a possible—a barely possible—defense in the

deportation proceeding that would inevitably follow his

conviction (itself an inevitability if he pleaded guilty): that a

marriage‐fraud violation must “relat[e] to document fraud”

to be an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(P)

and that he hadn’t committed document fraud. True, he’d

made misrepresentations in applications for immigration

benefits, but according to Burton “document fraud” is lim‐

ited to the misuse of “passports, green cards, or other immi‐

gration documents.”

Burton had made clear to the defendant that the argu‐

ment was unlikely to prevail—indeed was a “Hail Mary,” an

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No. 16‐1134 3

assessment confirmed by our decision in Gourche v. Holder,

663 F.3d 882, 885 (7th Cir. 2011), issued a month after the de‐

fendant pleaded guilty. Gouche holds that the reference to

“visas, permits, and other entry documents” in 8 U.S.C.

§ 1227(a)(3)(B)(iii) is intended “only to provide a convenient

shorthand description of § 1546 (prohibiting fraud and mis‐

use of visas, permits, and other documents) rather than to

limit the class of aliens deportable under § 1227(a)(3)(B)(iii).”

See also Patel v. Ashcroft, 294 F.3d 465, 469–70 (3d Cir. 2002).

As noted by the magistrate judge to whom the district

judge referred the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel

for a recommendation, the defendant had, thanks to lawyer

Burton, “full knowledge of the great risk that he faced of de‐

portation given the marriage fraud charges to which he was

pleading guilty,” and “actively strategized with his attor‐

neys to attempt to navigate the minefield that he faced in

this regard.” The district judge agreed with the magistrate

judge that Burton had not rendered ineffective assistance to

the defendant.

The government had backed up its marriage‐fraud

charge with a charge of mortgage fraud, an aggravated felo‐

ny in this case because of the amount of the loss caused by it.

8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i). Given the near certainty of de‐

portation if the defendant was convicted of mortgage fraud,

it made sense for him to plead guilty, as he did on advice of

counsel. The plea might avoid deportation if as seemed pos‐

sible the charge of mortgage fraud might be dismissed—and

it was.

The defendant argues that Burton should have warned

him that if he pleaded guilty to marriage fraud he would

have “no chance” of avoiding deportation. Actually “no

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4 No. 16‐1134   

chance” was incorrect because Gourche v. Holder had not yet

been decided. Moreover, not all aliens convicted of aggra‐

vated felonies are deported. Some are overlooked by over‐

worked immigration authorities and others released by

court order pursuant to Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678

(2001), which holds that immigrants admitted to the United

States and subsequently ordered removed can’t be detained

for an indefinite period of time. And some of them success‐

fully plead deferral or withholding of removal because there

is a serious risk of their being tortured or killed if returned to

their country of origin. Our defendant has sought to elude

deportation despite his plea of guilty and subsequent con‐

viction and sentence by failing to report to the Bureau of

Prisons by June 8, the surrender date set by the district

judge. He currently is a fugitive.

A trial was not an attractive alternative to the defendant’s

pleading guilty for the further reason that juries rarely are

sympathetic to noncitizen defendants accused of the offenses

that the defendant in this case was charged with. They are

especially unlikely to acquit such a defendant when the evi‐

dence of his guilt is overwhelming. And he would have been

likely to receive a longer prison sentence if convicted after a

trial—defendants who plead guilty usually get a break re‐

garding the severity of their sentence. Had Burton advised

the defendant to go to trial and the defendant had done so

and been convicted (as is highly likely, since he has failed to

articulate any defense), we would doubtless be faced with an

ineffective‐assistance claim, just as in the present appeal. The

defendant would be no better off and quite possibly worse

off as a result of that choice.

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No. 16‐1134 5

The defendant quotes from Padilla v. Kentucky, supra, 559

U.S. at 368–69, that “Padilla’s counsel provided him false as‐

surance that his conviction would not result in his removal

from this country. This is not a hard case in which to find

deficiency: The consequences of Padilla’s plea could easily

be determined from reading the removal statute, his depor‐

tation was presumptively mandatory, and his counsel’s ad‐

vice was incorrect.” In contrast, Burton did not advise his

client that “his conviction would not result in his removal

from this country.” He advised him correctly that there was

only a slight chance of that. The advice left the defendant

free to gamble, if he wanted, by pleading guilty, which he

did—and lost the gamble when our court decided Gourche v.

Holder. But this was not Burton’s fault; he had warned the

defendant of the risks to his immigration status of pleading

guilty. We agree with the district court that Burton did not

render the defendant ineffective assistance of counsel.

The appeal also challenges certain sentencing enhance‐

ments imposed by the district judge, but these challenges

have too little merit to warrant discussion.  

The judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

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