2004 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

6-28-2004

Ponnapula v. Atty Gen USA

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential

Docket No. 03-1255

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PRECEDENTIAL

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

NO. 03-1255

_____________

MURALI KRISHNA PONNAPULA;

 v.

JOHN ASHCROFT, Attorney General of

the

United States of America; JAMES W.

ZIGLAS, Commissioner of the

Immigration and Naturalization Service;

EDWARD MCELROY, New York City

District Director of the Immigration and

Naturalization Service;

KENNETH ELWOOD, Philadelphia

District Director of the

Immigration and Naturalization Service;

IMMIGRATION &

NATURALIZATION SERVICE;

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF

JUSTICE,

 Appellants

________

On Appeal from the United States

District Court For

The Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 02-cv-01214)

District Judge: Honorable Sylvia H.

Rambo

__________

Argued February 26, 2004

Before: RENDELL, BARRY and

BECKER, Circuit Judges

(Filed June 28, 2004 )

DARYL F. BLOOM

Office of United States Attorney

Federal Building

228 Walnut Street

P.O. Box 11754

Harrisburg, PA 17108

WILLIAM C. MINICK (Argued)

United Sates Department of Justice

Office of Immigration Litigation

P.O. Box 878

Ben Franklin Station

Washington, DC 20044

Attorneys for Appellants

ALEXANDER E. EISEMANN (Argued)

282 Katonah Ave.

Suite 244

Katonah, NY 10536

Attorney for Appellee

PAUL A. ENGELMAYER

CHRISTOPHER J. MEADE (Argued)

KATHERINE R. GOLDSTEIN

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering

399 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10022
2

JOSHUA L. DRATEL

National Association of Criminal

Defense Lawyers

Joshua L. Dratel, P.C.

14 Wall Street

New York, NY 10005

JONATHAN E. GRADESS, Executive

Director

MANUEL D. VARGAS, Project

Director

Immigrant Defense Project

New York State Defenders Association

P.O. Box 20058

West Village Station

New York, NY 10014

Attorneys for Amici Curiae, National

Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

and the New York State Defenders

Association in Support of Appellee

________________________

OPINION OF THE COURT

________________________

BECKER, Circuit Judge.

This appeal centers on the question

w h ether the Immigration an d

Naturalization Service (“INS”) can apply

a new law retroactively in a way that will

alter the immigration consequences of an

immigrant’s decision made under prior

law.1 Under former § 212(c) of the

Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”),

8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) (repealed 1996),

deportable aliens who had accrued seven

years of lawful permanent residence in the

United States could request discretionary

relief from deportation by arguing that the

equities weighed in favor of their

remaining in the United States. Even an

alien deportable because he had been

convicted of an aggravated felony, see 8

U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (1994), was

eligible for such discretionary relief if he

served a term of imprisonment less than

five years. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c).

Section 212(c) was repealed in

September 1996, when Congress passed

the Illegal Immigration Reform and

Immigrant Responsibility Act (“IIRIRA”),

Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546

(codified in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.).

Section 304(b) of IIRIRA repealed §

212(c) relief entirely, replacing it with a

procedure called “cancellation of

removal,” see 8 U.S.C. § 1229b (1996),

and providing that cancellation of removal

is not available to an alien convicted of

any aggravated felony. This provision was

consistent with section 440(d) of the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty

Act (“AEDPA”), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110

Stat. 1214 (codified in relevant part at 8

U.S.C. § 1182 (1996)), enacted shortly

 

1

Since March 1, 2003, the INS has

been part of the Department of

Homeland Security. The activity

involved in this case is now carried on by

the Bureau of Immigration and Customs

Enforcement. However, since the case

began as an INS matter, we shall

continue to refer to the INS.
3

before IIRIRA, which rendered aliens

convicted of aggravated felonies,

regardless of the length of their sentence,

ineligible for discretionary relief from

deportation under former § 212(c).

In INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 326

(2001), the Supreme Court held that

discretionary relief under former § 212(c)

“remains available for aliens . . . whose

convictions were obtained through plea

agreements and who . . . would have been

eligible for § 212(c) relief at the time of

their plea under the law then in effect.” In

St. Cyr, the Court needed to determine

whether IIRIRA section 304(b) applied

retroactively. After concluding that

Congress did not provide a sufficiently

clear command with respect to the

temporal reach of the repeal of former §

212(c) by IIRIRA section 304(b), the

Court applied the next step of the familiar

principles of Landgraf v. USI Film

Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994), to

determine whether the repeal had an

impermissible retroactive effect. Landgraf

cataloged a history of Supreme Court

precedent establishing a “presumption

against statutory retroactivity,” id. at 270,

in the absence of a clear command from

Congress. A statute will be impermissibly

retroactive when it attaches new legal

consequences to prior events because its

application “would impair rights a party

possessed when he acted, increase a

party’s liability for past conduct, or impose

new duties with respect to transactions

already completed.” Id. at 280. The

question whether a new statute attaches

new legal consequences to prior conduct

“demands a commonsense, functional

judgment” that “should be informed and

guided by ‘familiar considerations of fair

notice, reasonable reliance, and settled

expectations.’” Martin v. Hadix, 527 U.S.

343, 357-58 (1999) (quoting Landgraf,

511 U.S. at 270).

In St. Cyr, the Court concluded that the

retroactive application of IIRIRA section

304(b) would have an impermissible

retroactive effect on aliens—such as St.

Cyr—who had pleaded guilty prior to the

repeal of § 212(c). The Court highlighted

the quid pro quo of the criminal plea

agreement, and reasoned that because

aliens like St. Cyr almost certainly relied

upon the likelihood of receiving

discretionary relief in deciding whether to

forgo their right to a trial, the elimination

of any possibility of § 212(c) relief by

IIRIRA has an obvious and severe

retroactive effect. This appeal presents the

question whether application of IIRIRA

section 304(b) would have a similarly

impermissible retroactive effect on the

petitioner, Murali Krishna Ponnapula.

Ponnapula turned down a misdemeanor

plea agreement, went to trial when former

§ 212(c) was still in effect, and was

convicted of a felony by the jury; he went

to trial in reliance on the advice of his

counsel that, even if he were found guilty,

he would very likely not receive a sentence

that would render him ineligible for §

212(c) relief, because of his very minor

role in the offense.

Rejecting the position of the

government that Ponnapula is precluded

from claiming retroactive effect by reason
4

of the discussion in St. Cyr, we conclude

that St. Cyr is simply one application of

the general principles articulated in

Landgraf that counsel against interpreting

statutes to have retroactive effect. Here,

with respect to an alien who reasonably

could have relied on the potential

availability of § 212(c) relief, application

of the Landgraf principles shows that

I IRIRA section 304(b) has an

impe rmissible retroac tive effect.

Moreover, on this record, where the

petitioner demonstrated clear and

reasonable actual reliance on the former

statutory scheme in making the decision to

go to trial, there is a fortiori an

impermissible retroactive effect. We

begin with the facts of Ponnapula’s case.

I.

A.

In 1993, a New York state grand jury

indicted Ponnapula, along with several

other defendants, for grand larceny in the

first degree, N.Y. Penal Law § 155.42, and

falsifying business records in the first

degree, N.Y. Penal Law § 175.10.

Essentially the offense involved a

fraudulent application submitted to the

Bank of India for a loan to generate

working capital, secured by a valuable

parking lot located near LaGuardia Airport

in New York City. The loan application

was submitted by a group headed by

Ponnapula’s brother, Dr. P.S. Prasad.

Prasad and his assistant, Vijay Dandapani,

prepared a loan application in the name of

a shell company, listed Ponnapula as its

nominal president, and submitted an

inflated personal net worth statement over

his name. The loan was eventually

approved. However, the undisputed

evidence established that Prasad and

Dandapani did all of this without

Ponnapula’s knowledge, and that

Dandapani forged Ponnapula’s signature

on both the loan application and the net

worth statement. 

Over the next year, Ponnapula and the

Manhattan District Attorney’s Office

engaged in plea negotiations. The District

Attorney’s Office offered to allow him to

plead guilty to a misdemeanor with a

probationary sentence. Ponnapula

considered the offer and the immigration

consequences of pleading guilty versus

going to trial. His counsel advised him

that if he was convicted, he would very

likely receive the minimum sentence of

only one to three years’ imprisonment,

which is less than the five years necessary

to disqualify an alien from § 212(c) relief.

Accordingly, Ponnapula reasonably

believed that even if he were convicted of

a felony after trial he would still likely be

eligible for hardship relief from

deportation pursuant to former § 212(c).

In reliance on this advice, Ponnapula

decided to turn down the misdemeanor

offer and proceeded to trial. On December

20, 1994, he was convicted of both counts

in the indictment. He was sentenced to the

minimum term of imprisonment—one to

three years.

The advice of Ponnapula’s counsel,

and his reliance thereon, is easily

understandable, for the evidence at trial
5

barely established criminality. Indeed,

Ponnapula’s participation was so limited

that the trial judge set aside the jury’s

guilty verdict and dismissed the indictment

as to Ponnapula, for reasons chronicled in

the margin.2 It is also noteworthy that

while the loan application contained false

statements, the bank was well secured, and

recovered $1.35 million of the $1.9 million

loan amount when it ultimately sold the

parking lot. However, the order setting

aside the conviction was eventually

reversed on appeal and the conviction

reinstated.

 Upon remand, the trial court imposed

the mandatory minimum term of one to

three years imprisonment on this New

York State “B” felony, see N.Y. Penal

Law § 155.42, but the trial judge

recommended to the New York State

Corrections Department that it “consider

[defendant] for an early release program

that encompasses work release.”

Ponnapula then filed a petition for habeas

relief in the United States District Court

for the Southern District of New York.

 

2According to Judge Carruthers:

The People presented no

evidence that Murali participated

in any way in the inclusion of any

false statements contained in the

loan application, or that Murali

knew that the loan documents

contained any false

representations. The People’s

most important witness,

Dandapani, testified that Murali

was not informed of

misrepresentations that Prasad

ordered Dandapani and Shetty to

include in the loan application and

the supporting documents. Murali

could not have learned from the

documents themselves that Prasad

was deceiving the bank. The

evidence shows that Murali never

had a chance to examine them. 

Thus, Murali was in no position to

detect even the glaring

misrepresentations concerning his

finances that were contained in

the loan applications.

With respect to the documents

that Murali signed at the closing,

Dandapani and Krasner, the

bank’s attorney, each testified that

Murali only glanced at the papers,

but did not read them before

signing. Moreover, there was no

evidence that Murali signed the

documents with knowledge that

Prasad intended to misapply the

proceeds of the loan . . . .

. . . . [T]he People’s key

witness, Vijay Dandapani,

testified unequivocally that Murali

never knew of the

misrepresentations made to the

bank in the loan application. The

remainder of the evidence

presented by the People simply

fails to support the contention that

Murali was a knowing participant

in any misrepresentations made by

Prasad or his assistants with

regard to the loan.
6

While concluding that the evidence had

been legally sufficient to sustain

petitioner’s conviction of a larceny

involving more than one million dollars,

and that he was constrained to deny federal

habeas relief, Judge Rakoff observed:

[P]etitioner’s counsel has

convinced me that his client was,

for lack of a better term, the small

fry or—maybe even bette r

term—the schnook of this

particular group of miscreants.

And though I have no power

other than the power to comment

on what should be done now in

terms of his incarceration, for what

it’s worth, it seems to me it would

certainly be in the interests of

justice for him to be released on

work release.

After Ponnapula was allowed out on

work release, the INS filed a detainer and

warrant for a removal hearing on October

2, 2000, and pursuant to New York law

Ponnapula was returned to state custody.

On January 8, 2001, after a hearing, an

immigration judge found Ponnapula

removable from the United States. On

appeal, the BIA affirmed, holding that St.

Cyr could not be extended beyond

defendants who had pleaded guilty. On

May 7, 2002, after two years of

incarceration on his conviction, the New

York State Department of Correctional

Services released Ponnapula. Upon his

release, the INS took him into custody and

transferred him to the Pike County,

Pennsylvania jail for detention. On May 8,

2002, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241,

Ponnapula filed the habeas petition that is

the subject of this appeal.

B.

In analyzing the petition for hardship

relief, the District Court reasoned that it

was “presented with the very narrow legal

question of whether . . . to apply IIRIRA

retroactively to [Ponnapula].” Ponnapula

v. Ashcroft, 235 F. Supp. 2d 397, 402

(M.D. Pa. 2002). However, it decided that

the exemption-stripping provision in

IIRIRA could not be applied, “[g]iven the

factual underpinnings of this case,” id.,

and it concluded that Ponnapula was

entitled to apply for hardship relief. More

specifically, the District Court found that

the “[e]limination of any possibility of

former § 212(c) relief by IIRIRA has an

obvious and severe retroactive effect on

persons like Petitioner who relied on

settled expectations of the immigration

laws in place at the time he turned down a

plea bargain and decided to go to trial.”

Id. at 403. It also found that “A major

factor in his decision not to accept the

offer was the lack of any distinction for the

purposes of § 212(c) relief between a

misdemeanor and felony conviction.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

Summarizing its position, the District

Court ruled that “[i]n deciding not to

accept the plea bargain offered, but instead

to go to trial, Petitioner conformed his

conduct to the settled expectation that §

212(c) relief would be available.

Accordingly, the court finds that

foreclosing § 212(c) relief to Petitioner

would have an impermissible retroactive
7

effect.” Id. at 406.

Because Ponnapula had lived

continuously in the United States for seven

years and had been sentenced to less than

five years’ imprisonment, he would have

been eligible for § 212(c) relief had it not

been eliminated. Indeed, it would appear

from the record that he would likely have

been granted it: Ponnapula’s wife and two

children as well as several of his brothers

are naturalized United States citizens. All

of them live in this country. Ponnapula’s

fourteen-year-old and twenty-year-old

daughters do not speak Telgu, the native

language of their parents. With the

exception of the first one and one-half

years of the older daughter’s infancy, each

has spent a total of only six weeks in India

in their entire lives. The youngest

daughter is in the ninth grade, and removal

of her father would lead to her mother

leaving the country, and would force the

daughter to reside in a place where she has

no ties and does not speak the language.

Indeed, Ponnapula had been approved to

become a United States citizen and was

planning to take the oath in 1993, but did

not do so because he was indicted for this

offense before the oath could be

administered.

II.

A.

It will be useful to set forth a brief

description of the statutory regime in place

prior to 1996 and the passage of AEDPA

and IIRIRA. Under that regime, pursuant

to § 212(c), a lawful permanent resident

convicted of a deportable offense was

statutorily eligible to seek from the

Attorney General discretionary relief from

deportation. See 8 U.S.C. §

1182(d)(1994). Prior to IIRIRA,

immigrants who were deportable on the

basis of a criminal offense could apply for

§ 212(c) relief so long as they had lived in

this country continuously for seven years.

O n l y th o s e wh o had b e e n

convicted—either by plea or at trial—of a

crime that fell under the definition of an

“aggravated felony,” see 8 U.S.C. §

1101(a)(43) (1994), and who had served a

prison term of at least five years were

statutorily ineligible for discretionary

relief. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(c) (1994).

Even a defendant convicted of an

aggravated felony and sentenced to five or

more years’ imprisonment might have

maintained eligibility for § 212(c) relief

provided that he had not served five years

of his sentence by the time of his removal

hearing.

There was also a strong likelihood that

such relief would be granted: The Attorney

General granted it in over half of all cases

in which it was sought. See St. Cyr, 533

U.S. at 296 & n.5. Moreover, the relief

was predictably granted where certain

factors were present, including family ties

within the United States, residence of long

duration in this country, evidence of

hardship to the immigrant’s family as a

result of deportation, and a stable history

of employment. See In re Marin, 16 I&N
8

Dec. 581, 584-85 (BIA 1978).3

With IIRIRA, Congress repealed §

212(c) relief altogether and replaced it

with a provision that created a new and

significantly narrower form of relief called

“cancellation of removal.” This form of

relief is now unavailable to any immigrant

who was convicted of an aggravated

felony, no matter the length of the

sentence. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b. The

definition of “aggravated felony” has been

retroactively expanded to include dozens

more offenses, including misdemeanor and

low-level felony offenses. See 8 U.S.C. §

1101(a)(43). Courts have upheld the

application of the expanded definition of

“aggravated felony” to minor offenses.

See, e.g., United States v. Pacheco, 225

F.3d 148, 154 (2d Cir. 2000)

(misdemeanor state theft of a video game

valued at $10, for which immigrant

received one-year suspended sentence, is

an aggravated felony); United States v.

Graham, 169 F.3d 787, 792 (3d Cir. 1999)

(misdemeanor crime of petty larceny is an

aggravated felony).

The practical effect of the repeal of §

212(c) relief, in conjunction with several

other statutory amendments, is that a far

larger number of immigrants are now

deportable under the new law, while a

much smaller number are eligible for any

form of relief from deportation.

Moreover, if the repeal is applied

retroactively to immigrants such as

Ponnapula, the practical effect is that it

will convert what was the mere possibility

of deportation into a certainty. 

B.

Since the principal authority governing

this case is Landgraf, we rescribe its

fundamental precepts. There the Supreme

Court held that, absent a clear command to

the contrary from Congress, there is a

“presumptio n ag ain st statutory

retroactivity.” 511 U.S. at 270.4 Without

such a clear statement, retroactive

application of a statute is impermissible

when it “would impair rights a party

possessed when he acted, increase a

party’s liability for past conduct, or impose

new duties with respect to transactions

already completed.” Id. at 280. In Martin

v. Hadix, the Court elaborated that the

 

3

Section 212(c) relief is governed by

predictable standards, “comparable to

common-law rules,” St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at

296 n.5.

 

4

See also Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 265,

271, 271 n.25, 272, 273, 275 n.29, 277,

278, 279, 286 (referring, variously, to the

“presumption against retroactive

legislation,” the “presumption against

statutory retroactivity,” the

“antiretroactivity presumption,” and the

“traditional presumption against truly

‘retrospective’ application”); Hughes

Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel.

Schumer, 520 U.S. 939, 946, 947, 950,

951, 952 (1997) (same); Hadix, 527 U.S.

at 352, 367 (same); St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at

316, 320, 324 (same); Republic of

Austria v. Altmann, No. 03-13, slip op. at

14, 17 (U.S. June 7, 2004) (same).
9

question whether a new statute attaches

new legal consequences to prior conduct

“demands a commonsense, functional

judgment” that “should be informed and

guided by ‘familiar considerations of fair

notice, reasonable reliance, and settled

expectations.’” 527 U.S. at 357-58

(quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280). Most

recently, in Republic of Austria v.

Altmann, the Supreme Court held that the

Landgraf line does not apply to the “sui

generis context” of the Foreign Sovereign

Immunities Act, slip op. at 18, but

nonetheless both the majority and dissent

expressly reaffirmed Landgraf’s “old and

well-established principle,” slip op. at 3

(Kennedy, J., dissenting); see also slip op.

at 13-18 (reaffirming but distinguishing

Landgraf). The Altmann Court explained

that “the aim of the presumption is to

avoid unnecessary post hoc changes to

legal rules on which parties relied in

shaping their primary conduct.” Slip op. at

17-18.

In St. Cyr, the Court applied the

principles of Landgraf in considering

whether IIRIRA’s repeal of discretionary

relief under former § 212(c) would have a

retroactive effect if applied to an alien who

was “convicted pursuant to a plea

agreement at a time when [his] plea would

not have rendered [him] ineligible for §

212(c) relief.” St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 320.

The Court first examined whether the

provisions repealing former § 212(c)

evinced a clear Congressional intent to

apply the repeal retroactively. Concluding

that there was no such clear statement, see

St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 314-20, the Court next

considered whether applying the repeal

retroactively would be impermissible. The

Court concluded that applying the repeal to

aliens “who entered into plea agreements

with the expectation that they would be

eligible for [§ 212(c)] relief” would

“‘attach[] a new disability, in respect to

transactions or considerations already

past’” and produce a retroactive effect. Id.

at 321 (quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at

269). The Court ultimately held something

somewhat more expansive: “We . . . hold

that § 212(c) relief remains available for

aliens, like respondent, whose convictions

were obtained through plea agreements

and who, notwithstanding those

convictions, would have been eligible for

§ 212(c) relief at the time of their plea

under the law then in effect.” Id. at 326.

In reaching this conclusion, the Court

focused on an alien’s reasonable reliance

on the possibility of discretionary relief

under former § 212(c) as one of the most

important factors prompting him to forego

trial and enter a plea agreement. “Given

the frequency with which § 212(c) relief

was granted in the years leading up to . . .

IIRIRA,” the Court reasoned, “preserving

the possibility of such relief would have

been one of the principal benefits sought

by defendants deciding whether to accept

a plea offer or instead to proceed to trial.”

Id. at 323. Indeed, “[t]here can be little

doubt that, as a general matter, alien

defendants considering whether to enter

into a plea agreement are acutely aware of

the immigration consequences of their

convictions.” Id. at 322. In support of its

conclusion that aliens who accepted plea
10

agreements prior to IIRIRA had a reliance

interest in § 212(c) relief, the Court

pointed to the quid pro quo at the heart of

criminal plea agreements. Id. at 321. “In

exchange for some perceived benefit,

defendants waive several of their

constitutional rights . . . and grant the

government numerous tangible benefits.”

Id. at 322 (internal quotation marks

omitted). The Court concluded that

“[b]ecause [St. Cyr], and other aliens like

him, almost certainly relied upon [the]

likelihood [of receiving discretionary

relief] in deciding whether to forgo their

right to a trial, the elimination of any

possibility of § 212(c) relief by IIRIRA

has an obvious and severe retroactive

effect.” Id. at 325.

C.

The crux of the government’s argument

is that the appeal is controlled by St. Cyr,

which it views as resting uniquely on the

existence of the quid pro quo of criminal

plea agreements. The absence of this quid

pro quo here, the INS argues, causes

Ponnapula’s claim to fail. Of course, the

unspoken premise of this argument is that

St. Cyr articulated the exclusive conditions

for impermissible retroactivity in this

context.

The Courts of Appeals for the Second

and Fourth Circuits have confined St. Cyr

to the plea-agreement context on the

understanding that a quid pro quo is

required. See Swaby v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d

156, 161-62 (2d Cir. 2004); Rankine v.

Reno, 319 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir. 2003);

Chambers v. Reno, 307 F.3d 284, 290-91

(4th Cir. 2002).5 Other Courts of Appeals

have also limited St. Cyr’s retroactivity

holding to the plea-bargain context without

specifically invoking the quid pro quo

language from St. Cyr. See Montenegro v.

Ashcroft, 355 F.3d 1035 (7th Cir. 2004)

(per curiam); Dias v. INS, 311 F.3d 456

(1st Cir. 2002); Armendariz-Montoya v.

Sonchik, 291 F.3d 1116 (9th Cir. 2002);

Brooks v. Ashcroft, 283 F.3d 1268 (11th

Cir. 2002). A related argument advanced

by the INS and in these cases is that the

immigrant has “rolled the dice” by going

to trial and thereby forfeited any claim to

certainty. See, e.g., Chambers 307 F.3d at

291-92.

As we will explain, our interpretation

of Landgraf and its progeny differs

somewhat from these Courts’. But even

accepting their understanding of Landgraf,

we think Ponnapula’s case distinguishable

from the cases cited above, with the

 

5We have also suggested this in two

opinions, Chukwuezi v. Ashcroft, 48 Fed.

Appx. 846, 851 (3d Cir. 2002) and

Uspango v. Ashcroft, 289 F.3d 226, 230

(3d Cir. 2002). Neither is binding on this

issue on this panel, however, see Third

Circuit IOP 9.1 (“Policy of Avoiding

Intra-Circuit Conflict of Precedent”): 

Chukwuezi is a not-precedential opinion,

and the discussion in Uspango of St. Cyr

is dicta because it is not necessary to that

opinion’s holding—that a removal

proceeding does not “commence,” for

purposes of 8 C.F.R. § 3.14 and

IIRIRA’s effective-date provision, with

an alien’s petition for asylum.
11

possible exception of Swaby (with which,

at all events, we disagree). We first

explain why we believe that other Courts

of Appeals have perhaps misapplied

Landgraf in this area, and we then show

why, even under the constricted and

questionable (but nonetheless prevailing)

view, Ponnapula’s somewhat unique

situation still demands that he be

considered for § 212(c) relief.

III.

A.

Because we disagree with other Courts

of Appeals’ application of Landgraf to the

question in this case, some background on

those Courts’ treatment of Landgraf is

necessary. We treat the Second Circuit’s

opinion in Rankine as representative.

There, the Court laid out the Supreme

Court’s modern retroactivity doctrine with

citations to Landgraf, Hadix, and St. Cyr,

see Rankine, 319 F.3d at 98-99, much as

we have done above, see supra Part II.B.

The Court explained that the Rankine

petitioners’ “choice to go to trial puts

[them] on different footing [from St. Cyr]

in two crucial respects.” Rankine, 319

F.3d at 99.

First, none of these petitioners

detrimentally changed his position

in reliance on continued eligibility

for § 212(c) relief. Unlike aliens

who entered pleas, the petitioners

made no decision to abandon any

rights and admit guilt—thereby

immediately rendering themselves

deportable—in reliance on the

availability of the relief offered

prior to IIRIRA. The petitioners

decided instead to go to trial, a

decision that, standing alone, had

no impact on their immigration

status. Unless and until they were

convicted of their underlying

crimes, the petitioners could not be

deported.

* * *

Second, the petitioners have

pointed to no conduct on their part

that reflects an intention to preserve

their eligibility for relief under §

212(c) by going to trial. If they had

pled guilty, petitioners would have

participated in the quid pro quo

relationship, in which a greater

expectation of relief is provided in

exchange for forgoing a trial, that

gave rise to the reliance interest

emphasized by the Supreme Court

in St. Cyr. As the Court made

clear, it was that reliance, and the

consequent change of immigration

status, that produced the

impermissible retroactive effect of

IIRIRA. Here, petitioners neither

did anything nor surrendered any

rights that would give rise to a

comparable reliance interest.

Id. at 99-100 (citation omitted).

Three aspects of this opinion are

noteworthy. First, neither in the passages

above, nor anywhere else in the opinion,
12

does the word “presumption” appear,6 yet

the presumption against retroactivity is the

essence of the Landgraf line of cases.

Second, the passage above discussing a

detrimental change in position appears to

require actual reliance by the party seeking

to avoid retroactive application, yet the

Supreme Court has never required actual

reliance in any case in the Landgraf line.

Third, the Court’s objection that

“petitioners have pointed to no conduct on

their part” suggests that the party seeking

to avoid retroactive application bears an

evidentiary burden, another requirement

we are unable to locate in the Landgraf

line. In the next section, we discuss in

detail our concern that each of these may

be unfaithful to Landgraf and its progeny.

B.

The Second Circuit’s lack of emphasis

on the presumption against retroactivity is

in considerable tension with the Supreme

Cou rt’s consistent trea tmen t of

retroactivity analysis. See supra note 4

(cataloging references to “presumption” in

Landgraf, Hughes Aircraft, Hadix, St. Cyr,

and Altmann). The Supreme Court’s

framework for assessing the retroactivity

of civil laws has been consistently applied:

The Court first looks for a clear statement

from Congress that a statute is to be

applied retroactively, and will defer to

such a command. See, e.g., Landgraf, 511

U.S. at 270. But in the absence of a clear

command, a consistent line of cases

establishes that “‘congressional

enactments and administrative rules will

not be construed to have retroactive

effect.’” Id. at 272 (quoting Bowen v.

Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204,

208 (1988)).

Landgraf softens this apparently

categorical stance by recognizing that

another line of cases holds that “in many

situations, a court should ‘apply the law in

effect at the time it renders its decision,’

even though that law was enacted after the

events that gave rise to the suit.” 511 U.S.

at 273 (quoting Bradley v. Sch. Bd., 416

U.S. 696, 711 (1974)). The Landgraf

Cou rt c ited as examples laws

“authoriz[ing] . . . prospective relief,” id.,

“statutes conferring or o ustin g

jurisdiction,” id. at 274, and “[c]hanges in

procedural rules,” id. at 275. Harmonizing

these two lines, the Court explained:

When a case implicates a federal

statute enacted after the events in

suit, the court’s first task is to

determine whether Congress has

expressly prescribed the statute’s

proper reach. If Congress has done

so, of course, there is no need to

resort to judicial default rules.

When, however, the statute

contains no such express command,

the court must determine whether

the new statute would have

retroactive effect, i.e., whether it

 

6This is not strictly accurate: The

phrase “presumption against

retroactivity” does appear incidentally in

an extended quotation of another Court

of Appeals’ decision. See Rankine, 319

F.3d at 102 (quoting Lara-Ruiz v. INS,

241 F.3d 934, 945 (7th Cir. 2001)).
13

would impair rights a party

possessed when he acted, increase

a party’s liability for past conduct,

or impose new duties with respect

to transactions already completed.

If the statute would operate

retroac tively, our traditional

presumption teaches that it does not

govern absent clear congressional

intent favoring such a result.

511 U.S. at 280.

Moreover, in Hughes Aircraft, the

Court explained that a “conten[tion] that

only statutes with one of these effects are

subject to our presumption against

retroactivity” would “simply misread[] our

opinion in Landgraf.” 520 U.S. at 947.

The Hughes Aircraft Court held that the

language quoted above “does not purport

to define the outer limit of impermissible

retroactivity,” but merely describes “a

sufficient, rather than a necessary,

condition for invoking the presumption

against retroactivity.” Id. Because the

Supreme Court has repeatedly couched its

holdings in this area in terms of a liberal

presumption—albeit one that arises only

conditionally, on a finding of retroactive

effect—we read Landgraf and its progeny

to hold that the presumption against

retroactivity is easily triggered, though not

automatic.7

Our disagreement with the courts that

have held that IIRIRA’s repeal of § 212(c)

relief is not impermissibly retroactive with

respect to aliens who went to trial is that

those courts have erected too high a barrier

to triggering the presumption against

retroactivity. This has the effect of

treating Landgraf as establishing a

presumption in favor of retroactive

application, but such a presumption would

be wrong—the Supreme Court explicitly

held in Hughes Aircraft that the Court of

Appeals had erred by concluding that

Landgraf evinced a “strong presumption in

favor of retroactivity.” 520 U.S. at 950.

The Second Circuit’s su btle

heightening of the showing required to

trigger the presumption against

retroactivity is also visible in that Court’s

apparent insistence that an alien show

actual reliance to reap the benefit of the

presumption against retroactivity. It is a

strange “presumption,” in our view, that

arises only on so heightened a showing as

actual reliance (though as we explain, see

infra Part IV, Ponnapula actually has made

such a showing). Relatedly, the Second

Circuit seems to require a quantum of

evidence regarding the subjective intent of

the party seeking to avoid retroactive

application; this too strikes us as being in

tension with the language of presumption

in Landgraf and its progeny; furthermore,

 

7

Parenthetically, we note that the

holdings and reasoning of Landgraf,

Hughes Aircraft, and Hadix are not

somehow inapplicable to laws about

deportation; the Court made plain in St.

Cyr, 533 U.S. at 325 n.55, that the

retroactive application of an immigration

law is analyzed no differently from the

retroactive application of any other civil

statute. 
14

such a requirement incorrectly focuses

attention on the particular facts and

circumstances of the party before the

court.

The Supreme Court has never required

actual reliance or evidence thereof in the

Landgraf line of cases, and has in fact

assiduously eschewed an actual reliance

requirement. Landgraf, Hughes Aircraft,

Hadix, and St. Cyr all establish this. In

Landgraf, the question was whether the

Civil Rights Act of 1991’s addition of

compensatory and punitive damages

remedies to certain Title VII suits could be

applied retroactively to reach preenactment conduct. The Court concluded

that the remedies could not be applied

retroactively, but it reached this conclusion

without once referring to the defendant’s

conduct or the defendant’s actual

expectations. In fact, the defendant (USI

Film Products) is not even mentioned in

the pertinent section of the Court’s

opinion. See Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280-

93. Indeed, it is difficult to see how USI

Film Products could have proven its actual

reliance on the absence of a punitive

damages provision.

Likewise, in Hughes Aircraft, the

particular situation or expectations of the

defendant were immaterial to the Court’s

analysis. Hughes Aircraft was brought

under an amendment to the False Claims

Act that eliminated a defense to certain qui

tam suits. Hughes Aircraft argued that the

elimination of the defense could not be

applied retroactively, and the Court

agreed. Again, the Court evaluated the

retroactivity question in the abstract,

without reference to Hughes Aircraft’s

conduct or expectations, see Hughes

Aircraft, 520 U.S. at 947-52, and it is

again difficult to see how the defendant

could have established its actual reliance

on the prior state of the law.

Ha dix concerned Co ngre ss’s

amendments to the fee provisions

applicable to post-judgment monitoring in

prison reform suits. The amendments

capped the hourly fee recoverable on

behalf of attorneys performing such

monitoring. Attorneys for Hadix, one of

the named plaintiff prisoners in the suit,

claimed that the amendment was

impermissibly retroactive because it

reduced their hourly rate for work

performed before the effective date of the

amendment (because it had already been

performed) and for work performed after

the effective date of the amendment

(because the attorneys could not ethically

withdraw from the case until the prison

reform decree was terminated). The Court

agreed with the former position, see

Hadix, 527 U.S. at 358-60, but rejected the

latter because the attorneys “provide[d] no

support for [their] assumption” about their

ethical duties, id. at 361.

Important for our purposes is not the

result, however, but the Court’s reasoning.

Hadix differs from Landgraf and Hughes

Aircraft in that Hadix does in fact refer to

the particular situation of the party seeking

to avoid retroac tive application.

Nonetheless, the Hadix Court’s discussion

focuses not on the bona fides of the
15

attorneys’ claimed actual reliance,8 but

instead on whether reliance was (or would

have been) reasonable. See, e.g., id. at

360 (“To impose . . . new standards now,

for work performed be fore th e

[amendments] became effective, would

upset the reasonable expectations of the

parties.”); id. (“After [the date of the

amen dmen t], any expectation of

compensation at the [pre-amendment] rates

was unreasonable.”).

St. Cyr is the most recent case in the

Landgraf line. As with Hughes Aircraft

and Landgraf itself, the analytical focus of

the opinion is not on the facts and

circumstances of the party before the

Court. The Court briefly considered the

putative actual reliance of Enrico St. Cyr

and a similarly situated alien, Charles

Jideonwo, but did so merely for illustrative

purposes. See St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 323. St.

Cyr is principally concerned with the

reasonable reliance interests of aliens who

enter into plea agreements as a class. To

that end, the discussion of the quid pro quo

in criminal plea agreements is directed at

establishing, as a general matter, the

reasonable reliance of this class of aliens,

irrespective of the course of St. Cyr’s own

plea negotiations.9

Moreover, the St. Cyr Court’s language

does not require concrete certainty about

the exact historical motives and actual

reliance and expectations of each alien

who pled guilty. We set out several

examples in the margin.10 On the whole,

 

8

For example, the Hadix Court did not

cite affidavits or other representations

from the attorneys that they actually

relied on the higher hourly fee in electing

to perform the monitoring services. For

that matter, it is not inconceivable that

attorneys engaged in such a practice

might have performed their services with

or without the marginally greater

inducement of the higher pre-amendment

fees.

 

9

Indeed, the presence of a quid pro

quo is excellent support, in an

evidentiary sense, for the existence of a

reliance interest, since a quid pro quo

supplies two archetypal predicates for a

reliance interest: foregoing a right (here,

the right to a trial) and conferring a

benefit (here, saving the government the

costs and uncertainty of prosecution). 

 

10See, e.g., St. Cyr., 533 U.S. at 323

(“[P]reserving the possibility of [§

212(c)] relief would have been one of the

principal benefits sought by defendants

deciding whether to accept a plea offer . .

. .” (emphasis added)); id. (“Relying

upon settled practice, the advice of

counsel, and perhaps even assurances in

open court that the entry of the plea

would not foreclose § 212(c) relief, a

great number of defendants in

Jideonwo’s and St. Cyr’s position agreed

to plead guilty.” (emphasis added)); id.

(referring to plea agreements “that were

likely facilitated by the alien’s belief in

their continued eligibility for § 212(c)

relief” (emphasis added)); id. at 325

(“[R]espondent, and other aliens like

him, almost certainly relied upon [the]
16

we think the Supreme Court regarded St.

Cyr as a clear and straightforward result

flowing from Landgraf; to paraphrase

counsel for the amici curiae at oral

argument, St. Cyr was an easy case on the

retroactivity issue.

Thus the Supreme Court has avoided

an “actual reliance” formulation in favor

of a “reasonable reliance” formulation in

its retroactivity analysis. “Reasonable

reliance” is specifically highlighted in

Hadix, 527 U.S. at 357-58 (holding that

retroactivity analysis “should be informed

and guided by ‘familiar considerations of

fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled

expectations.’”). The likelihood that the

party before the court did or did not in fact

rely on the prior state of the law is not

germane to the question of retroactivity.

Rather, courts are to concentrate on the

group to whose conduct the statute is

addressed—in Landgraf it was employers

subject to Title VII; in Hughes Aircraft it

was government contractors; in Hadix it

was attorneys performing prison reform

monitoring services; in St. Cyr it was

alie n s who ac c epted a ple a

agreement—with a view to determining

whether reliance was reasonable.

The Landgraf line also establishes that

a change in law can be found

impermissibly retroactive without

establishing that some (or all) members of

the group affected by the change in law

relied on the prior state of the law. For

example, it is unlikely that in Landgraf any

employer demonstrably relied on the

absence of a punitive damages remedy for

Title VII violations, or that in Hughes

Aircraft any government contractor

purposely arranged its billing practices ex

ante to take advantage of a specific

defense under the False Claims Act.

Likewise, in St. Cyr, the Court found it

sufficient that the plea agreements of

deportable aliens were “likely facilitated

by the aliens’ belief in their continued

eligibility for § 212(c) relief.” 533 U.S. at

323 (emphasis added). And indeed the

Court’s holding is not limited to those

aliens who actually relied on the

availability of § 212(c) relief: “We . . .

hold that § 212(c) relief remains available

for aliens, like respondent, whose

convictions were obtained through plea

agreements and who, notwithstanding

those convictions, would have been

eligible for § 212(c) relief at the time of

their plea under the law then in effect.” St.

Cyr, 533 U.S. at 326.

The holding in St. Cyr then is simply

not subject to a qualification that the alien

seeking the opportunity to pursue § 212(c)

relief must have accepted a plea agreement

that necessarily preserved his eligibility for

§ 212(c) relief (i.e., a plea agreement that

provided for release from incarceration in

less than five years’ time). We find this

significant because it further confirms that

Landgraf’s limitations on the repeal of

former § 212(c) are construed broadly in

favor of those who had even a partial or

contingent reliance interest in the existing

likelihood [of § 212(c) relief].” state of the law—for example, an alien

(emphasis added)).
17

who accepted a plea agreement with a sixyear term of imprisonment that, through

good behavior credits and the like, could

be shortened to less than five years’ time.11

C.

We have established that the question

we must answer is whether the repeal of §

212(c) relief is impermissibly retroactive

with respect to aliens who elected to go to

trial (or some relevant subset thereof).

Stated another way, we ask what aliens—if

any—who went to trial and were convicted

did so in reasonable reliance on the

availability of § 212(c) relief. If

Ponnapula is among this group, we must

affirm the District Court’s grant of habeas

corpus relief. We conclude that he is.

As noted above, in St. Cyr, the

Supreme Court found that all aliens who

accepted plea agreements had some

reliance interest in the potential

availability of § 212(c) relief. The Court

concentrated its discussion on the alien’s

decision whether to accept the plea

agreement. This focus is logical because

the reliance interest of an alien who

accepts a plea agreement arises at the time

the choice is made to accept the

agreement. Generally speaking, reliance

interests (in the legal sense) arise because

some choice is made evincing reliance.

Cf. Restatement (Second) of Contracts §

90 (1981) (requiring “action or

forbearance” to invoke promissory

estoppel).

Accordingly, we focus on the choice

made by aliens who went to trial and were

convicted prior to the effective date of

IIRIRA’s repeal of former § 212(c).12 We

 

11Indeed, St. Cyr himself accepted a

plea that provided for a ten-year

sentence, with execution suspended after

five years. See Brief for the Petitioner at

11 n.7, St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (No. 00-

767), 2001 WL 210189. If he had

actually served the full five-year

unsuspended portion of his sentence, St.

Cyr would have been ineligible for

discretionary relief under § 212(c). See

INA § 212(c) (depriving the Attorney

General of the power to withhold

deportation for “an alien who . . . has

served . . . a term of imprisonment of at

least 5 years” for certain crimes). Thus,

even St. Cyr himself did not accept a plea

that guaranteed his eligibility for §

212(c) relief.

 

12We acknowledge that our focus here

on the decision of the alien to go to trial

is somewhat in tension with our holding

in Perez v. Elwood, 294 F.3d 552 (3d

Cir. 2002), that an alien whose date of

conviction for an aggravated felony falls

after the effective date of IIRIRA is

ineligible for § 212(c) relief on any

theory; it is virtually certain that some

aliens chose to go to trial before

IIRIRA’s effective date, but were

actually convicted after the effective

date. We cannot, of course, overrule

Perez. See Third Circuit IOP 9.1

(“Policy of Avoiding Intra-Circuit

Conflict of Precedent”). The tension

with Perez need not detain us long,

however, because the parties stipulated
18

may subdivide this category into (1) aliens

who went to trial because they declined a

plea agreement that was offered to them,

and (2) aliens who went to trial because

they were not offered a plea agreement.

Because aliens in the latter category had

no opportunity to alter their course in the

criminal justice system in reliance on the

availability of § 212(c) relief, we highly

doubt (though do not explicitly hold, for

the issue is not before us) that such aliens

have a reliance interest that renders

IIRIRA’s repeal of former § 212(c)

impermissibly retroactive as to them.

As for the former category, we hold

that aliens such as Ponnapula who

affirmatively turned down a plea

agreement had a reliance interest in the

potential availability of § 212(c) relief.

For many aliens, the reliance interest is

obvious and significant—Ponnapula

himself has such a reliance interest

because the then-existing parameters for

former § 212(c) eligibility would so

obviously factor into the decision-making

of someone in his position. (Specifically,

Ponnapula needed to ensure that, however

the larceny charge was resolved, he would

serve less than the five years specified in

former § 212(c).) This conclusion is

buttressed by the Supreme Court’s

recognition that the availability of

discretionary relief plays a central role in

many aliens’ decisions regarding whether

to accept a plea agreement. See St. Cyr,

533 U.S. at 322-23. Though St. Cyr

concentrated on the many aliens who

ultimately accepted plea agreements, it is

not reasonable to believe that all aliens

who rejected plea agreements thereby

disclaimed any interest in § 212(c) relief;

in fact, quite the contrary is true. There

are many reasons to proceed to trial—the

lack of a plea agreement that would ensure

eligibility for § 212(c) relief, the hope of

an acquittal, or the simple desire to

exercise fundamental constitutional

rights—but few if any of them are

inconsistent with preserving a contingent

interest in § 212(c) relief.

A case about aliens who accept plea

agreements (i.e., St. Cyr) is relatively

straightforward because the availability of

§ 212(c) relief was very likely a dominant

factor in their decision. This case may

seem harder because making the decision

to go to trial is perhaps more complex and

more nuanced, but we should not let that

obscure the fact that former § 212(c) was

one of a host of factors considered by

aliens who elected that course—and, per

the Court’s discussion in St. Cyr, a

significant factor at that.

To be sure, there are aliens who would

appear to have had a very attenuated

reliance interest in the availability of §

212(c) relief—for example, aliens charged

with the most serious of crimes, carrying

the longest prison sentences, who turned

below that Ponnapula’s date of

conviction for IIRIRA purposes

(December 20, 1994) was prior to the

effective date of IIRIRA (April 1, 1997). 

See Ponnapula, 235 F. Supp. 2d at 399

n.6. To accommodate Perez we simply

limit our holding to aliens convicted

before the effective date of IIRIRA.
19

down unattractive plea agreements.

Preserving eligibility for discretionary

withholding of deportation was probably

not foremost in such aliens’ minds, for

they had the slimmest of chances to qualify

for § 212(c) relief. But the fact that an

interest may have been attenuated,

however, has had little salience in the

Supreme Court’s analysis of other

retroactivity questions. For example, ex

ante it was unlikely that Hughes

Aircraft—or any given government

contractor—would need to avail itself of a

specific defense against a qui tam action;

or that USI Film Products—or any given

employer subject to Title VII—would find

itself accused of discriminatory conduct

meriting punitive damages. In neither case

would anyone have claimed, ex ante, that

the affected companies had anything more

than a highly contingent—and thus

seriously attenuated—interest in the thenexisting state of the law.13

Moreover, in St. Cyr itself, as we have

discussed above, the Court extended its

holding to all aliens who had accepted plea

agreements; some of these aliens

necessarily had attenuated reliance

interests in the availability of § 212(c)

relief (for example, consider the

hypothetical alien described above who

accepted a plea bargain with a six-year

term of imprisonment, subject to goodtime credits). The St. Cyr Court’s

explanation that “the fact that § 212(c)

relief is discretionary does not affect . . .

our conclusion,” 533 U.S. at 325, is also

consistent with our understanding of how

attenuated interests are to be treated in a

retroactivity analysis: Attenuation of this

kind generally does not render reliance

unreasonable.14

 

13With respect to monitoring services

already performed, Hadix presents a case

at the opposite pole. There, the affected

attorneys necessarily had an interest in

the statute that set their maximum hourly

rate. But this reveals only that Hadix

was a relatively easy case—and indeed,

the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in

the attorneys’ favor on the issue of

monitoring services already performed. 

See Hadix, 527 U.S. 343 (opinion of the

Court); id. at 362 (Scalia, J., concurring

in part and concurring in the judgment);

id. at 364 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in

part and dissenting in part). Hadix thus

does not speak to the question of

reasonable but attenuated reliance

interests.

 

14“Attenuation” as we have discussed

it in the text refers to the idea of one

present consideration (among many)

having only a minority influence on an

actor’s ultimate decision. There is

another sense of “attenuation,”

however—one connoting causal

remoteness. For example, the Court of

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has

properly noted that “‘it would border on

the absurd’ to argue that an alien would

refrain from committing crimes or would

contest criminal charges more vigorously

if he knew that after he had been

imprisoned and deported, a discretionary

waiver of deportation would no longer be

available to him.” Lara-Ruiz, 241 F.3d
20

Finally, if it was reasonable in St. Cyr

for an alien to rely on the attenuated

availability of § 212(c) relief in accepting

a plea agreement, we see no reason why it

would be unreasonable for the same alien

to likewise rely in declining a plea

agreement. The reasonable reliance

question turns on the nature of the

statutory right and the availability of some

choice affecting that right, not on the

particular choice actually made. In sum,

because aliens such as Ponnapula who

affirmatively turned down plea agreements

had a reliance interest in the potential

availability of § 212(c) relief, we hold that

IIRIRA’s repeal of § 212(c) is

impermissibly retroactive with respect to

such aliens. While this statement seems

broad, it is faithful to St. Cyr, which

painted with broad strokes: “We . . . hold

that § 212(c) relief remains available for

aliens, like respondent, whose convictions

were obtained through plea agreements

and who, notwithstanding those

convictions, would have been eligible for

§ 212(c) relief at the time of the plea under

the law then in effect.” 533 U.S. at 326.

This reflected approval of Judge Oakes’s

opinion for the Second Circuit, St. Cyr v.

INS, 229 F.3d 406 (2d Cir. 2000), which

adopted the same categorical approach:

“[W]e hold that the bar on applying for

relief enacted in AEDPA § 440(d) and

IIRIRA § 304 does not apply to an alien

who pled guilty or nolo contendere to an

otherwise qualifying crime prior to

IIRIRA’s enactment date.” Id. at 421.15

Accordingly, Ponnapula is entitled to

apply for discretionary withholding of

deportation under former § 212(c).16

at 945 (quoting LaGuerre v. Reno, 164

F.3d 1035, 1041 (7th Cir. 1998)).

 

15Moreover, on a practical level, the

difference between this holding and a

more circumscribed one is smaller than it

first appears. For some aliens sentenced

to terms of five years or longer

(following their rejection of plea

agreements), there is a chance of serving

less than five years, and preserving

statutory eligibility for § 212(c) relief. 

Cf. supra note 11 (noting that St. Cyr

would not necessarily have been

statutorily eligible for § 212(c) relief). 

But the majority of aliens convicted of

lengthy sentences will find that this

opinion removes IIRIRA’s bar to relief

only to leave them foundering on the

shoals of statutory ineligibility under

former § 212(c) itself.

 

16We note in passing that, in

comparison to the holding in St. Cyr, the

effect of our overall holding is likely to

be small. First, the class of aliens

affected by this ruling is constantly

shrinking in size as the effective date of

IIRIRA recedes into the past. Second, as

we note in the preceding footnote, many

aliens who are within the scope of this

holding will nonetheless be statutorily

ineligible for § 212(c) relief by reason of

having served five years or more in

prison. Third, many times more criminal

defendants enter into plea agreements

than go to trial. See St. Cyr 533 U.S. at

322 n.47. Thus, for the vast majority of
21

* * *

In this Part, we have set out our view

of the most faithful application of the

Landgraf line to the case at bar. We

recognize, however, that the other Courts

of Appeals to address cases like

Ponnapula’s have taken a rather different

approach to the retroactivity question.

Though we stand on the foregoing

analysis, we will also analyze Ponnapula’s

case under the rubric employed by those

other Courts.

IV.

A.

We have described the background of

facts, all uncontradicted and accepted by

the District Court, which demonstrate

that Ponnapula played a minor and

essentially unknowing role in the

fraudulent scheme. We incorporate these

facts by reference here. The best

description of Ponnapula’s pretrial

posture is supplied by the declaration of

his trial counsel, Alexander E. Eisemann,

Esq., in support of a motion for a

temporary restraining order in the

District Court. In pertinent part,

Eisemann’s declaration states as follows: 

At one point prior to

petitioner’s trial, Assistant District

Attorney David Steiner offered to

allow him to plead guilty to a

misdemeanor with a probationary

sentence. Petitioner considered

the offer and the immigration

consequences of pleading guilty

and going to trial. He realized

that even if he were convicted of a

felony after trial he would still be

eligible for hardship relief from

deportation pursuant to section

212(c) of the Immigration and

Nationality Act, see 8 U.S.C. §

1182(c) (1994). Moreover, his

counsel advised him that, if

convicted after trial, he would

likely receive a sentence of less

than five years’ imprisonment and

that he would, in all likelihood,

receive a sentence of only one to

three years’ imprisonment. 

In reliance on these facts,

petitioner declined the

misdemeanor offer and proceeded

to trial.

App. 56-57.

In short, as the District Court noted:

Here, there can be no doubt that

Petitioner conformed his conduct

to match his settled expectations

of immigration law. Petitioner

was offered an opportunity to

plead guilty to a misdemeanor

which would have had no

immigration consequences, but

turned down the plea because

“even if he were convicted of a

removable criminal aliens, the

retroactivity of IIRIRA’s repeal of

former § 212(c) was settled nearly three

years ago by St. Cyr, so the decision we

announce today affects a much smaller

group of aliens.
22

felony after trial he would still be

eligible for hardship relief from

deportation pursuant to § 212(c).”

235 F. Supp. 2d at 405 (quoting

Eisemann Decl.).

We stress that Ponnapula actually

relied on the state of the law in rejecting

the misdemeanor plea agreement and

going to trial. Notably, none of the court

of appeals cases treating St. Cyr as

requiring a quid pro quo involved actual

reliance by the immigrant on the then

state of the law. Also, in these cases the

charges (and the sentences) facing the

immigrant were far more serious than

those facing Ponnapula. For example, to

recur to the cases cited supra Part II.C,

Rankine was charged with attempted

murder, his co-petitioner Lawrence, a

repeat offender, was convicted of a midlevel drug offense, and his co-petitioner

Eze was convicted of first degree rape.17

See Rankine, 319 F.3d at 96-97. 

Theodoropoulos was convicted of a highlevel drug conspiracy. See

Theodoropoulos v. INS, 313 F.3d 732,

734 (2d Cir. 2002). Montenegro was

convicted of possession of cocaine with

intent to distribute, see Montenegro, 355

F.3d at 1036, as was ArmendarizMontoya, Armendariz-Montoya, 291

F.3d at 1118. In none of these cases does

the record reflect or even suggest a plea

agreement was offered, or that the

defendant had reasonable assurance that

his sentence would be less than five

years.18 Thus Ponnapula’s case seems

distinguishable on its facts, both in that

Ponnapula has demonstrated actual

reliance where the aliens in other cases

did not, and in that Ponnapula’s offense

was significantly less grave.

B.

We must also engage the rationale of

these cases. As will appear, while that

rationale will support the result reached

on the facts of those cases, any attempt to

apply it to deny relief in Ponnapula’s

case falls of its own weight or at least

cannot survive rigorous scrutiny. We

treat Rankine as representative. In

arriving at its result, the Court relied

principally on selected parts of the

Supreme Court’s opinion in St. Cyr:

The [Supreme] Court focused on

the fact that plea agreements are a

form of quid pro quo where, “[i]n

exchange for some perceived

benefit, defendants waive several

of their constitutional rights

(including the right to a trial) and

grant the government numerous

tangible benefits.” [St. Cyr, 533

U.S.] at 322 (internal quotation

omitted). Recognizing that §

 

17Lawrence and Eze were also resident

aliens seeking the same relief as

Rankine.

 

18Swaby was convicted of burglary and

possession of marijuana. See Swaby, 357

F.3d at158. While this case may be

closest to Ponnapula, the Swaby panel

felt itself bound by Rankine and did not

consider the matter de novo. See id. at

162.
23

212(c) relief was frequently

granted prior to the enactment of

AEDPA and IIRIRA, the Court

found that “preserving the

possibility of such relief would

have been one of the principal

benefits sought by defendants

deciding whether to accept a plea

offer or instead to proceed to

trial.” Id. at 323.

The Court also highlighted the

“clear difference, for the purposes

of retroactivity analysis, between

facing possible deportation and

facing certain deportation.” Id. at

325. Because there was a

“significant likelihood” that

resident aliens would receive §

212(c) relief prior to IIRIRA, the

Court found that aliens “almost

certainly relied upon that

likelihood in deciding whether to

forgo their right to trial,” id., and

instead to plead to sentences that

would preserve their eligibility for

such relief. Without the

possibility of relief, these pleas

guaranteed the aliens’ removal;

the elimination of § 212(c),

therefore, changed the legal effect

of their pleas and unsettled their

reliance. The Court concluded

that “it would surely be contrary

to ‘familiar considerations of fair

notice, reasonable reliance, and

settled expectations’ to hold that

IIRIRA’s subsequent restrictions

deprive them of any possibility of

such relief.” Id. at 323-24

(quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at

270) (internal citation omitted).

Rankine, 319 F.3d at 99. The Court

conceded that St. Cyr did not directly

control the outcome, but then opined

that:

We cannot, however, ignore the

strong signals sent in those

opinions that aliens who chose to

go to trial are in a different

position with respect to IIRIRA

than aliens like St. Cyr who chose

to plead guilty.

Id. We agree, for it is clear that St. Cyr

does not control the outcome. But for

reasons explained above, see supra Part

III, we do not agree that relevant

jurisprudence contains “strong signals”

that aliens who go to trial are in a

different position from those who plead

guilty.

The wellspring of Rankine and its

companion cases is a concern for actual

reliance. Though we have explained why

we do not believe that this is the best

rendering of Landgraf, we accept that

here as a starting point for the sake of

argument. What becomes critical, then,

is how to prove reliance. We agree that

the kind of quid pro quo inherent in the

acceptance of a plea agreement is one

way to prove reliance; as we note above,

the action and forbearance implicit in a

quid pro quo is strong evidence of

reliance. But it is surely not the only way

to establish reliance, much less the

talisman that the INS makes it out to be. 

An individual can rely or have settled

expectations about a state of affairs
24

without having to enter into an exchange

to secure or assure it.

From our discussion above of the lack

of concern in the Landgraf line for actual

reliance, it should go without saying that

there is no mention of a quid pro quo or

surrender of constitutional rights in

Landgraf, Hughes Aircraft, or Hadix. 

Neither is there any mention of a quid

pro quo in our decision in Mathews v.

Kidder, Peabody & Co., 161 F.3d 156,

164 (3d Cir. 1998):

In this case, the events in question

are the alleged fraudulent acts by

the defendants. If the RICO

Amendment is applied to this

case, it would attach new legal

consequences to these events. 

Before the Amendment, the legal

consequences included liability

under the federal securities laws

and RICO; after the Amendment,

the legal consequences included

liability only under the securities

laws. 

Focusing then on new legal

consequences to Ponnapula himself, they

surely have occurred here. Ponnapula

relied on the advice of counsel. It is hard

to imagine that Ponnapula would not

have accepted the misdemeanor plea

offer if he had known about the risk of

being ineligible for § 212(c) relief. And

as the District Court concluded,

“[a]defendant who goes to trial believing

that his opportunity to seek § 212(c)

relief is secure, is as equally disrupted in

his reasonable and settled expectations as

is a defendant who accepts a plea

believing it to confer such a benefit.”

235 F. Supp. 2d at 404.

We do not gainsay that the existence

of a quid pro quo (for a guilty plea)

justified the result in St. Cyr. But to the

extent that the Court in St. Cyr noted that

plea agreements involve a quid pro quo

between the criminal defendant and the

government and a waiver of several

constitutional rights, see 533 U.S. at 322,

these statements do not create an

additional requirement necessary to

establish retroactive effect. In our view,

these statements only serve to highlight

the obvious and severe retroactive effect

of applying IIRIRA to aliens who

pleaded guilty; in other words, the quid

pro quo notion comfortably fit the case. 

What Rankine and its companion cases

have done is to convert quid pro quo into

a rigid baseline test, to ossify the

language of St. Cyr into a test that the

Supreme Court simply never mandated

and we are unwilling to create.

In a variation on this theme, the

government argues that “Ponnapula’s

simple expectation or reliance is not the

same as the heightened expectation of

relief which the St. Cyr aliens brought at

the price of their constitutional rights and

paid for with the immediate certainty of

deportation.” The Rankine Court used

similar rhetoric: “The petitioners here

assumed no similarly heightened

expectation from their decision to go to

trial.” 319 F.3d at 100. We find no basis

for a “heightened expectation” standard

in St. Cyr or elsewhere in the Supreme

Court’s jurisprudence, and we reject it.
25

We have not here reviewed in detail

each of the court of appeals cases that

have rejected extending St. Cyr to

immigrants who were convicted at trial

before IIRIRA. Suffice it to say that the

holdings in these cases are largely the

result of the courts’ failure to be

convinced that immigrants who chose to

go to trial could possibly have relied on

the availability of 212(c) relief. As the

Ninth Circuit stated in rejecting this

argument: “Unlike aliens who pleaded

guilty, aliens who elected a jury trial

cannot plausibly claim that they would

have acted any differently if they had

known [that their decision would later

make them ineligible for 212(c) relief].”

Armendariz-Montoya, 291 F.3d at

1121(emphasis added); see also Dias,

311 F.3d at 458 (“It follows that, having

been convicted after a trial where there

was not, and could not have been,

reliance by the defendant on the

availability of discretionary relief,

[petitioner] may not argue that the statute

has impermissible retroactive effect as to

him.” (emphasis added)). This argument

may be forceful given the serious charges

facing the immigrants in those cases, see

supra Part IV.A, but it withers in

Ponnapula’s case where, as we have

explained, the immigrant conformed his

conduct to the settled expectations of

immigration law that there would be no

adverse immigration consequences of

going to trial.

C.

Another notion that appears in the

other court of appeals cases is that of

“rolling the dice.” In Chambers, the

Court opined that the petitioner there did

not possess “a reliance interest

comparable to that which was at the heart

of St. Cyr,” 307 F.3d at 290, because “by

rolling the dice and going to trial,

Chambers actually ensured that his

eligibility for discretionary relief would

remain uncertain,” id. at 291.

We find the “roll the dice” metaphor

unhelpful, at least in this case. While

Ponnapula may have “rolled the dice” in

terms of guilt or innocence at trial, he did

not do so with respect to immigration

consequences in view of his reasonable

expectation that there would be no

adverse immigration consequences of

going to trial. We do not generally speak

of rolling the dice when the odds are

stacked extremely heavily in one’s favor. 

Assuming that the metaphor is applicable

to someone, it does not apply to

Ponnapula, because (to extend the

metaphor), Ponnapula was (retroactively)

deceived as to what was riding on the roll

of the dice. Neither do we find

persuasive the arguments that Ponnapula

gave up “certainty” and should not be

rewarded for “guessing wrong.” These

notions are inconsistent with our

explanation of Landgraf.

19

 

19We feel constrained to note that the

notion that Ponnapula should be

penalized so harshly, ipso facto, for

going to trial, in the hopes of avoiding

the disgrace and permanent stain of a

conviction, seems to run counter to

fundamental principles of the American
26

A related argument pressed by the

government is that there can be no

reasonable reliance in this case because

there was a risk that Ponnapula might

have been sentenced to more than five

years in prison—and that, thereafter, he

might have served more than five years

in prison—thereby making him ineligible

for § 212(c) relief. But Ponnapula was in

fact sentenced to a maximum of three

years in prison (and served even less),

and the fact that counsel’s advice proved

to be correct buttresses the conclusion

that it was reasonable for Ponnapula to

rely on his counsel’s advice in making

his immigration decisions. The

government would compare Ponnapula’s

risk of serving more than five years with

the risk to the immigrant in St. Cyr. In

fact, however, as we note above, see

supra note 11, St. Cyr himself faced a

greater term of imprisonment. Thus, the

government is simply incorrect when it

states that the immigrant in St. Cyr

“pursued a litigation strategy that

ensured his eligibility for section 212(c)

relief.”

V.

In sum, approaching the issue in this

case from the first principles of Landgraf

retroactivity analysis, and rejecting the

actual-reliance approach of our sister

Courts of Appeals, we conclude that

Ponnapula is entitled to pursue § 212(c)

relief. Accordingly, the judgment of the

District Court granting Ponnapula’s

petition for a writ of habeas corpus will

be affirmed.20

constitutional polity, which encourages

citizens to assert their innocence when

convinced that they are not guilty of an

offense, and go to trial.

 

20We will, however, vacate the District

Court’s determination that Ponnapula is

entitled to a bond hearing. The District

Court should reevaluate its holding on

that issue in light of the intervening

Supreme Court decision in Demore v.

Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003).
27