Opinion ID: 710073
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Purpose And History

Text: 44 The Supreme Court has observed that the general legislative purpose of the predecessor to the present Sec. 241(a)(2)(A), former Sec. 241(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, was to broaden the provisions governing deportation, 'particularly those referring to criminal and subversive aliens.'  Costello, 376 U.S. at 125, 84 S.Ct. at 583 (citing Commentary on the Immigration and Nationality Act, Walter M. Besterman, Legislative Assistant to the House Committee on the Judiciary, 8 U.S.C.A., pt. I, p. 61). 15 However, the moral turpitude ground for deportation has a much longer history. The term moral turpitude first appeared in the Immigration Act of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1084, which directed the exclusion of persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude. Jordan, 341 U.S. at 229, 71 S.Ct. at 707. The moral turpitude provision was reenacted in similar form in the Immigration Act of 1903, Sec. 2, Act of March 3, 1903, 32 Stat. 1213, and again in the Immigration Act of 1907, Sec. 2, Act of February 20, 1907, 34 Stat. 898. Id. Prior to the Act of 1952, the moral turpitude provision was found in Sec. 19 of the Immigration Act of 1917, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 155(a). See, e.g., Jordan, 341 U.S. at 224, 71 S.Ct. at 704. The crime involving moral turpitude provision of the immigration acts was Sec. 241(a)(4) of the Act of 1952, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1251(a)(4). Costello, 376 U.S. at 125, 84 S.Ct. at 583. There the provision remained until passage of the Immigration Act of 1990, which revised and recodified the relevant provision to Sec. 241(a)(2)(A), 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1251(a)(2)(A). Rodriguez-Herrera, 52 F.3d at 239 n. 1; Gonzalez-Alvarado v. INS, 39 F.3d 245, 246 n. 2 (9th Cir.1994). 45 As the Supreme Court noted in Jordan, a decision considering whether the phrase crime involving moral turpitude lacked sufficiently definite standards to justify deportation proceedings, moral turpitude is an issue that arises in circumstances other than deportation proceedings: 46 The term moral turpitude has deep roots in the law. The presence of moral turpitude has been used as a test in a variety of situations, including legislation governing the disbarment of attorneys and the revocation of medical licenses. Moral turpitude also has found judicial employment as a criterion in disqualifying and impeaching witnesses, in determining the measure of contribution between joint tort-feasors, and in deciding whether certain language is slanderous. 47 Jordan, 341 U.S. at 227, 71 S.Ct. at 705-06 (footnotes omitted). The Supreme Court subsequently added to this list of uses of the moral turpitude standard when it considered a provision of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 which disqualified voters convicted of any ... crime involving moral turpitude. Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 226, 105 S.Ct. 1916, 1919, 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). 48 More generally, one of the classic dichotomies of criminal law is the distinction between crimes that involve moral turpitude and those that do not. See generally New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 379 n. 21, 105 S.Ct. 733, 763, n. 21, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985) (Stevens, concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting dichotomy in classification of crimes as misdemeanors or felonies, malum prohibitum or malum in se, crimes that do not involve moral turpitude or those that do, and major and petty offenses, citing generally W. LaFave, Handbook on Criminal Law Sec. 6 (1972)); Kempe v. United States, 151 F.2d 680, 688 (8th Cir.1945) (noting that crimes have been divided according to their nature into crimes mala in se and crimes mala prohibita, and noting further that [g]enerally, but not always, crimes mala in se involve moral turpitude, while crimes mala prohibita do not.); and compare Matter of P., 6 I. & N. Dec. 795 (BIA 1955) (cited by the BIA below for its definition of moral turpitude as an act which is per se morally reprehensible and intrinsically wrong, or malum in se, so it is the nature of the act itself and not the statutory prohibition of it which renders a crime one of moral turpitude, thus equating crimes mala in se with crimes involving moral turpitude). 49 Nonetheless, despite its use in a number of circumstances and presence as a standard for deportation in the immigration laws of the United States for just over a century, the meaning of the phrase crime involving moral turpitude has defied absolute definition. Jordan, 341 U.S. at 233, 71 S.Ct. at 709 (Jackson, J., dissenting). Although there is general agreement that in order to be grounds for deportation, the crime of which the alien is convicted must be one that necessarily involves moral turpitude, see, e.g., Goldeshtein, 8 F.3d at 647 (crime must be one in which moral turpitude necessarily inheres); Chu Kong Yin, 935 F.2d at 1003 (same); Wadman, 329 F.2d at 814 (same); Tseung Chu, 247 F.2d at 935 (same); Ablett v. Brownell, 240 F.2d 625 (D.C.Cir.1957); United States ex rel. Giglio v. Neelly, 208 F.2d 337 (7th Cir.1953); United States ex rel. Guarino v. Uhl, 107 F.2d 399 (2d Cir.1939), courts have often had extreme difficulty determining whether specific crimes are crimes that meet this requirement. See, e.g., Dunn v. INS, 419 U.S. 919, 923, 95 S.Ct. 197, 199, 42 L.Ed.2d 156 (1974) (Stewart, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (It is far from clear that refusing induction is a 'crime involving moral turpitude.' ).