Opinion ID: 786320
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Identifying the Relevant Past Event

Text: 32 The touchstone of retroactivity analysis is Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994). Landgraf both confirmed the strong presumption against applying statutes retroactively, absent express legislative intent to the contrary, and established the analytical framework for determining whether a statute operates retroactively. The Supreme Court held that a statute applies retroactively if the new provision attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment. Id. at 270, 114 S.Ct. 1483. Determining whether a statute attaches new legal consequences to a past event, and thus whether the statute operates retroactively, is not a mechanical exercise. Rather, it involves a process of judgment concerning the nature and extent of the change in the law and the degree of connection between the operation of the new rule and a relevant past event.  Id. (emphasis supplied). The determination is one on which familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations offer sound guidance. Id. 33 Under Landgraf, then, one must determine the relevant past event in order to undertake retroactivity analysis. IIRIRA and AEDPA's elimination of section 212(c) relief for aggravated felons could conceivably attach new legal consequences to any of at least four past events: 1 (1) the criminal conduct; (2) the agreement to plead guilty (for convictions obtained by plea); (3) the decision to go to trial (for convictions obtained by verdict); and (4) the conviction. The Second Circuit has, at various times, analyzed the retroactivity of IIRIRA and AEDPA with respect to three of these four events — all but conviction. The Supreme Court has, as yet, considered only one event — the guilty plea. 34 This Court first considered criminal conduct as the relevant past event in St. Cyr v. I.N.S., 229 F.3d 406 (2d Cir.2000). St. Cyr observed in dicta that the elimination of section 212(c) relief attached no new legal consequence to criminal conduct because, it is the conviction, not the underlying criminal act, that triggers the disqualification from § 212(c) relief. Id. at 418 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). This dicta became law in Domond v. I.N.S., 244 F.3d 81, 85-86 (2d Cir.2001) (quoting St. Cyr ). Domond 's holding was reaffirmed, on the same grounds, in Khan v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 521, 523-24 (2d Cir.2003). In both cases, the Court also rejected the argument that considerations of reliance required it to deem the elimination of section 212(c) relief a new consequence of the criminal conduct. The Court observed that it would border on the absurd to argue that an alien would not have committed a crime had he known that he would be denied the possibility of section 212(c) relief. 2 Domond, 244 F.3d at 86; see also Khan, 352 F.3d at 523 (it cannot reasonably be argued that aliens committed crimes in reliance on such a possibility [of 212(c) relief]). 35 The guilty plea as the relevant event 3 was considered by both the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court in the St. Cyr decisions. This Court held that elimination of section 212(c) relief did attach new legal consequences to the decision to plead guilty: it is likely that a legal resident would, because of the possibility of receiving a lighter sentence, only decide to concede guilt to a crime that renders him or her removable in order to be eligible for relief from removal. St. Cyr v. I.N.S., 229 F.3d at 419. The Supreme Court agreed and added the observation that [n]ow that prosecutors have received the benefit of these plea agreements, agreements that were likely facilitated by the aliens' belief in continued eligibility for § 212(c) relief, 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. I.N.S. v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 323-24, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). 36 The decision to go to trial — the alternative to the decision to plead guilty — was considered as a relevant past event in Rankine v. Reno, 319 F.3d 93 (2d Cir.2003). In Rankine, the Court concluded that the elimination of section 212(c) relief attached no new consequence to that decision. 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. Id. at 99. The Court also rejected the argument that the consequence was the upsetting of petitioners' settled expectation or reliance interest that section 212(c) relief would be available despite the decision to go to trial. Here, petitioners neither did anything nor surrendered any rights that would give rise to a comparable [to St. Cyr ] reliance interest. Id. at 100. This latter point — that the upsetting of a reliance interest was not a new consequence — was categorically affirmed in Swaby v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 156 (2d Cir.2004).