Opinion ID: 2515111
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Subsequent Federal Proceedings and Defendant's Responses

Text: Defendant's 1997 plea to felony petty theft with a prior theft-related conviction plunged him into a labyrinth of legal problems. On December 16, 1998, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) [2] initiated proceedings for defendant's mandatory deportation based on his status as an alien who has been convicted of an aggravated felony, [3] which for deportation purposes is defined as a theft offense ... or burglary offense for which the term of imprisonment [is] at least one year. (8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(G).) A few months later, on February 1, 1999, defendant completed his three-year term (reduced by applicable credits) and was released on parole. He was detained by the INS the next day (see Kim v. Ziglar (9th Cir. 2002) 276 F.3d 523, 526) and held in federal custody without bond. He was eventually released from INS custody on August 20, 1999. Defendant successfully completed his three-year parole on February 1, 2002. On August 16 of that year, the INS filed an amended charging document, alleging that in addition to mandatory removal, defendant was also subject to discretionary removal due to his having been convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude: the toolshed burglary and the Costco felony petty theft with a prior. (8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii).) [4] Defendant then began filing collateral challenges to his various state convictions in an attempt to eliminate them as the basis for deportation. In 2003, he filed a nonstatutory motion to vacate his three-year sentence (but not the actual convictions) for the Costco petty theft with a prior and the concurrent two-year sentence for the toolshed burglary. Although both sentences had been served, he claimed that when he entered his plea, he did not know the sentences would subject him to mandatory deportation by the INS. When the trial court asked the prosecutor whether he opposed the motion, the prosecutor replied: No. I just want to say we're not opposing it. That's as far into it as I want to get. The trial court granted the motion, vacated the sentences, and resentenced defendant to serve a one-day probation on the condition he serve 364 days in jail, with credit for time served. [5] The result of this resentencing was that defendant served no additional time in prison (having already served a full three-year sentence), but his official sentence for the Costco crimes was now modified to be one day short of a year, thereby avoiding having either crime characterized as an aggravated felony for immigration purposes. [6] As a result of this retroactive resentencing, the INS amended its charging document, dismissing the allegation of mandatory removal based on the aggravated felony conviction (8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii)) and clarifying that it was proceeding only on the basis of discretionary removal as a result of defendant's two convictions involving moral turpitude (8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii)). The elimination of the allegation based on an aggravated felony conviction opened another avenue of possible relief for defendant in that he became eligible to move for cancellation of removal. [7] He so moved, and on June 27, 2003, a federal immigration judge granted his motion, thereby permitting him to remain in the country. On the INS's appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), however, the BIA reversed, concluding it was unconvinced that [defendant's] long residence in the United States, his family ties and his rehabilitation outweigh his substantial criminal history and recidivism. Consequently, the BIA ordered defendant removed from the United States to South Korea. Despite this setback, defendant continued his efforts to avoid deportation. First, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. That matter has since been removed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals under the REAL ID Act of 2005. [8] Second, he began proceedings to vacate his remaining state court convictions. On October 19, 2004, the Santa Barbara County Superior Court granted his motion to vacate his misdemeanor convictions for petty theft and second degree burglary stemming from his thefts at the UCSB campus bookstore. The same court later dismissed both charges. Having ameliorated the effect of his convictions for petty theft with a prior (the Costco crimes) and burglary (the toolshed crime) by having his aggregate sentence reduced to less than one year, and having obtained dismissal of his Santa Barbara misdemeanor theft-related convictions, all that remained for defendant to do was to obtain dismissal of his Costco conviction for petty theft with a prior, which would leave him with only a single conviction for a crime of moral turpitude (the toolshed burglary) and thus ineligible for removal from the country (because 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii) requires convictions of two or more crimes involving moral turpitude). That brings us to the present proceeding.