Opinion ID: 3050063
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The BIA’s reasoning in Lopez-Meza is specious,

Text: inconsistent with established precedent, and owed no deference in this court. In Lopez-Meza, as noted above, the BIA recognized that driving under the influence (i.e., a “simple DUI”) is not a crime of moral turpitude. 22 I. & N. Dec. at 1194. The BIA went on to conclude, however, that a conviction for a DUI does involve moral turpitude if the defendant had a suspended, canceled, revoked, or refused license at the time of the offense (i.e., an “aggravated DUI”). Id. at 1194-95. The Board concluded that a distinction could be made along moral grounds between a simple DUI and an aggravated DUI MARMOLEJO-CAMPOS v. GONZALES 12327 because the latter requires the driver to know that he is not supposed to drive. The Board stated: A conviction for aggravated DUI under . . . section 28-1383(A)(1) requires a showing that the offender was “knowingly” driving with a suspended, can- celed, revoked, or refused license. Thus, in order for a motorist to be convicted [of this crime], the state must prove that the defendant knew or should have known that his license was suspended. Conse- quently, aside from the culpability that is often, but not inherently, present in a simple DUI offense, an individual who drives under the influence in violation of . . . section 28-1383(A)(1) does so with the knowledge that he or she should not be driving under any circumstances. We find that a person who drives while under the influence, knowing that he or she is absolutely prohibited from driving, commits a crime so base and so contrary to the currently accepted duties that persons owe to one another and to society in general that it involves moral turpitude. Id. at 1195-96 (internal citations omitted). In this appeal, the majority relies in large part on the BIA’s decision, stating that “the knowledge that one has been specifically forbidden to drive” is enough to transform a simple DUI into a turpitudinous offense. Maj. Op. at 12322. However, we should not follow the reasoning in LopezMeza because distinguishing simple DUIs from aggravated DUIs along moral grounds is neither legally sustainable nor logically sound. First, if any aspect of Campos’s offense approached the “base, vile, or depraved” standard, it was his decision to drive drunk—not his decision to drive without a license. But, as noted above, drunk driving has already been determined by the BIA and acknowledged by this circuit to be non-turpitudinous. See Murillo-Salmeron, 327 F.3d at 902. In fact, it is clear that even driving drunk three times is not turpi12328 MARMOLEJO-CAMPOS v. GONZALES tudinous conduct, see id.; Torres-Varela, 23 I. & N. Dec. 78, and it is patently unreasonable to conclude that driving under the influence only once, even with a suspended license, somehow carries with it greater moral opprobrium than driving drunk repeatedly. Put differently, if being convicted on three separate occasions for driving under the influence does not so offend “the moral law . . . [such] that the offender is brought to public disgrace, is no longer generally respected, or is deprived of social recognition,” Jordan, 341 U.S. at 237 n.9 (citation omitted), doing so only once surely cannot meet this standard. Indeed, the BIA’s ratio decendi in Lopez-Meza was that a simple DUI is a “marginal crime” that “toes the line” of moral turpitude, and driving with a suspended license is just enough to ‘push’ the offense over that line. 22 I. & N. at 1196. However, if this were the correct way to conceptualize moral turpitude, committing a second and third DUI would surely give more of a ‘push’ toward turpitude than would driving with a suspended license, as the latter clearly does less to affront moral sensibilities—if it affronts them at all—than driving drunk. To be sure, driving without a license, on its own, is a quintessential example of a regulatory, non-turpitudinous offense. See Benitez v. Dunevant, 7 P.3d 99 (Ariz. 2000) (stating that the specific act of driving with a suspended license, even when that license has been suspended because of a previous DUI conviction, is not a crime involving moral turpitude). Second, it is sophistical to distinguish driving drunk with a suspended license from driving drunk multiple times on the theory that the former offense requires a showing that the offender “knew” he was not supposed to drive. See LopezMeza, 22 I. & N. at 1196; Maj. Op. at 12322. Surely, any individual who drives drunk knows that he is not supposed to do so, and this is especially true if that individual has been convicted several times for that offense. If “willful disregard for the law and a reckless indifference to the safety of others” is MARMOLEJO-CAMPOS v. GONZALES 12329 the standard we are to apply in determining moral turpitude, as the majority suggests, see Maj. Op. at 12323, getting behind the wheel while intoxicated on multiple occasions certainly demonstrates greater disregard and indifference than doing so only once without a license. What is more, if whether crimes were turpitudinous depended on whether the offenders knew they were violating the law, then virtually all offenses could be CIMTs. The Arizona Supreme Court’s reasoning in Benitez, cited supra, is illustrative: [T]he offense [of driving on a suspended license], in one sense, does question [the defendant’s] honesty because he did something he was expressly required by law not to do. But this is true of virtually all criminal offenses . . . . Moral turpitude is implicated when behavior is morally repugnant to society. It is not implicated when the offense merely involves poor judgment, lack of self-control, or disrespect for the law involving less serious crimes. 7 P.3d at 104. Third, Lopez-Meza and the majority opinion run afoul of the well-established and logical rule that a finding of moral turpitude cannot be manufactured by combining two offenses that are not morally turpitudinous. The BIA recognized this principle in Matter of Short, 20 I. & N. Dec. 136 (BIA 1989), stating unequivocally that “[m]oral turpitude cannot be viewed to arise from some undefined synergism by which two offenses are combined to create a crime involving moral turpitude, where each crime individually does not involve moral turpitude. There must be some particular criminal activity with which to evaluate whether the nature of that activity involves moral turpitude.” Id. at 139. Of course, this rule makes sense, for moral turpitude is a characteristic inherent in or intrinsic to an act. See Galeana-Mendoza v. Gonzales, 465 F.3d 1054, 1058 (9th Cir. 2006) (stating that to determine whether an offense is one of moral turpitude, “we consider the 12330 MARMOLEJO-CAMPOS v. GONZALES intrinsic or inherent nature of the crime”); Matter of Esfandiary, 16 I. & N. Dec. 659, 660 (BIA 1979) (“In order to determine whether a crime involves moral turpitude, we must look to the nature of the crime itself.”). Consequently, moral turpitude cannot be created by ‘aggregation.’