UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

 

SANTIAGO ALEJANDRE-GALLEGOS,

 Petitioner, 

v. 

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., United States 

Attorney General, 

 Respondent. 

No. 14-9567 

(Petition for Review)

 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

 

Before TYMKOVICH, O’BRIEN, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges. 

 

 Worried that he could be deported for his unlawful presence in this country, 

Santiago Alejandre-Gallegos sought discretionary relief under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b), 

which sometimes allows the Attorney General to “cancel” a deportation that would 

result in “unusual hardship” to an alien’s U.S. citizen family members. GarciaCarbajal v. Holder, 625 F.3d 1233, 1235 (10th Cir. 2010). An Immigration Judge 

 

*

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral 

argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral 

estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

March 26, 2015

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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denied the request and so did the Board of Immigration Appeals. No matter how 

hard the hardship, the BIA noted, an applicant can’t win cancellation of removal if he 

has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a)(2) 

& 1229b(b)(1)(C). And, the BIA observed, Mr. Alejandre-Gallegos has pleaded 

guilty to at least one such offense. 

Now before us, Mr. Alejandre-Gallegos seeks to undo this decision but his 

attorney fails to give us any grounds on which we might. Counsel suggests the BIA 

relied on improper evidence but doesn’t supply any citations to the record where it 

went wrong on the facts (despite Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A)). He suggests that the 

BIA applied the wrong legal standards but doesn’t cite any legal authority that might 

remotely support his claim. He even spends pages discussing another criminal 

charge against his client irrelevant to the one on which the BIA relied. Neither are 

counsel’s shortcomings confined to such important things. His statement of related 

cases actually includes argument (in defiance of 10th Cir. R. 28.2(C)(1)). He does 

not “cite the precise reference in the record where [each of his issues] was raised and 

ruled on” (as required by 10th Cir. R. 28.2(C)(2)) and his statement of the case 

includes no record citations at all (as required by Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(6)). His brief 

contains no “summary of the argument.” Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(7). He hasn’t even 

bothered to “alphabetically arrange[]” his table of authorities. Fed. R. App. P. 

28(a)(3)). We could go on. 

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Essentially, counsel pronounces that the BIA mistook the facts and acted in 

defiance of law and leaves it to the court to go fish for facts and law that might 

possibly support his claim. This, of course, the court has no obligation and is poorly 

positioned to do. In our adversarial system, neutral and busy courts rely on lawyers 

to develop and present in an intelligible format the facts and law to support their 

arguments and “[t]he adversarial process cannot properly function when one party 

ignores its obligations under the rules.” MacArthur v. San Juan Cnty., 495 F.3d 

1157, 1160 (10th Cir. 2007); see also Aquila, Inc. v. C.W. Mining, 545 F.3d 1258, 

1268 (10th Cir. 2008); United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315, 1329 n.15 (10th Cir. 

2004) (en banc). For that reason it’s within the court’s power “to dismiss an appeal 

when the appellant has failed to abide by the rules of appellate procedure.” 

MacArthur, 495 F.3d at 1161. That’s the course we find ourselves forced to take in 

this case. We dismiss the petition for review. 

 We confess reluctance about having to proceed so summarily and about having 

to chastise a professional colleague in this way. Everyone makes mistakes, and 

surely judges no less than lawyers. But the shortcomings here don’t just suggest a 

mistake, a few, or even a thoroughgoing disinterest in the rules of procedure. They 

suggest a lack of competent representation. For all we know from counsel’s garbled 

submission before us, his client may have a good claim or at least an arguable one: 

we just cannot tell. That worry occupied us so much that we decided to review 

counsel’s past filings in this court to see if his conduct here was (hopefully) 

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anomalous. But the results proved even more disquieting. They revealed that for at 

least a decade attorney John E. Reardon, Sr., has represented in this court immigrants 

seeking relief from removal — and that for at least that long his filings in this court 

have consistently suffered from the sort of shortcomings present in this one. It turns 

out that this court has noted the problem time and again. It has reminded counsel of 

his professional obligations. It has admonished him. All to no effect.1

At some point, this court has a duty to do more than observe, record, and warn. 

It has a duty to act. After reviewing the record before us, we are confident that time 

has more than come. Because we believe sanctions — including suspension from 

this court’s bar and restitution — may be appropriate, we direct the Clerk to initiate a 

 1 See, e.g., Medina-Chimal v. Holder, 14-9564, slip op. at 7 n.3 (10th Cir. Mar. 

20, 2015); Gonsalez v. Holder, 567 F. App’x 612, 614 (10th Cir. 2014) (noting that 

Mr. Reardon’s arguments “are prolix, vague, and contain little discussion of the 

precise circumstances of this case”); Vigil-Lazo v. Holder, 571 F. App’x 708, 711 n.2 

(10th Cir. 2014) (observing that Mr. Reardon “offer[ed no] substantive argument” to 

support his client’s “conclusory” claim of error); Pizano-Zeferino v. Holder, 432 

F. App’x 767, 770 (10th Cir. 2011) (declining to indulge Mr. Reardon’s “unfocused” 

constitutional contentions and holding that he failed to exhaust certain other 

arguments); Duron-Amador v. Holder, 381 F. App’x 778, 782 (10th Cir. 2010) 

(denying a petition for Mr. Reardon’s failure to comply with Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)); 

Herrera-Castillo v. Holder, 573 F.3d 1004, 1006 n.5, 1010 (10th Cir. 2009) (noting 

that Mr. Reardon neglected to file his opening brief on time and finding some 

arguments waived due to his failure to comply with Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)); Mendiola 

v. Gonzales, 189 F. App’x 810, 814-15 (10th Cir. 2006) (rejecting several of 

Mr. Reardon’s arguments as poorly developed or unexhausted); Mendez Suarez v. 

Comfort, 117 F. App’x 1, 2-3 (10th Cir. 2004) (noting the difficulty of 

“ascertain[ing] specifically what [Mr. Reardon] is arguing in his brief” and deciding 

only to review a handful of claimed errors “due to his failure to set forth a coherent 

argument” supporting any others). 

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disciplinary proceeding against Mr. Reardon. See Fed. R. App. P. 46(c); 10th Cir. R. 

46.6; Tenth Circuit Plan for Attorney Disciplinary Enforcement §§ 2.3 & 3. 

So ordered. 

 Entered for the Court 

 Neil M. Gorsuch 

 Circuit Judge 

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