Opinion ID: 73431
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Drug Conviction Vacated

Text: While he remained a fugitive from deportation, on May 21, 1997, Mejia petitioned in Florida state court for a writ coram nobis in which he sought to vacate his drug-trafficking conviction. Mejia contended that he did not receive effective assistance of counsel in his state criminal proceedings because he was not informed of the immigration consequences of his no-contest plea. On August 1, 1997, the state court vacated Mejia’s plea and sentence. Subsequently, the Florida State’s Attorney announced a nolle prosequi of the cocaine-trafficking charges against Mejia. D. Mejia’s Motion to Reopen his Deportation Proceedings 7 On September 23, 1997, the INS took Mejia into custody to execute the final deportation order entered in January 1994. On September 26, 1997, Mejia filed two motions to reopen his deportation proceedings - one to the immigration judge and one to the BIA. According to Mejia, the immigration judge refused to accept this motion. In an order dated November 27, 1998, the BIA denied Mejia’s motion to reopen his deportation proceedings. The BIA noted that under 8 C.F.R. § 3.2(c)(2) a motion to reopen deportation proceedings must be filed within 90 days of the BIA’s decision or before September 30, 1996, whichever is later. As Mejia did not file his motion to reopen until 1997, the BIA concluded that his motion was not timely filed. On December 14, 1998, Mejia filed, in this Court, a petition for review of the BIA’s November 1998 order. Mejia-Rodriguez v. INS, No. 98-5878. E. Mejia’s Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus On September 26, 1997, while his motion to reopen his deportation proceedings was still pending before the BIA, Mejia filed a § 2241 petition for habeas corpus in United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. 28 U.S.C. § 2241. In this petition, Mejia alleged that the immigration judge’s order pretermitting Mejia’s application for suspension of deportation was based upon an unconstitutional conviction subsequently vacated by the Florida state 8 courts. Mejia’s petition further alleged that this ineffective assistance of counsel in state court unconstitutionally tainted Mejia’s federal immigration proceedings because it had the collateral effect of precluding Mejia’s application for suspension of deportation, which was provided for under federal law. Finally, Mejia alleged that denying him the right to seek a suspension of deportation based on his unconstitutionally obtained state drug conviction constituted a deprivation of due process. With his petition, Mejia also filed an emergency motion for a stay of deportation. On September 26, 1997, the district court dismissed Mejia’s petition and denied his request for a stay of deportation. The district court found that Mejia’s petition was not timely filed under INA § 106(a)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1105a(a)(1) (1996). Mejia filed a motion for reconsideration of the court’s order and for a stay of his deportation. In his motion, Mejia argued that the district court had erroneously relied on INA § 106(a)(1), a statute that had been repealed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), and that his petition was based on 28 U.S.C. § 2241 - not INA § 106(a)(1). On October 7, 1997, the district court granted Mejia’s motion to the extent it sought a stay of his deportation. The court denied Mejia’s motion for reconsideration in an order dated November 14, 1997. 9 F. Mejia’s Renewed Habeas Petition On November 21, 1997, Mejia filed a renewed petition for habeas corpus under the same civil action number in the district court. In his new petition, Mejia reiterated the claims that he asserted in his initial petition and again asserted § 2241 as the sole basis for the court’s jurisdiction. On March 12 1998, the district court dismissed Mejia’s renewed petition and denied his request for a stay of deportation. The district court found that under 8 C.F.R. § 3.23, a motion for reconsideration of an “administrative order of removal, deportation, or exclusion” must be filed within thirty days of the order or before July 31, 1996, whichever is later, and a motion to reopen deportation proceedings must be filed within ninety days of the final order or before July 31, 1996, whichever is later. The district court further noted that Mejia did not file his motion to reopen until September 26, 1997, and that because the motion was not timely filed, the immigration judge refused to consider his motion. The district court reasoned that essentially Mejia’s habeas corpus petition “invited the court” to force the immigration judge to consider an untimely motion to reopen that the judge had refused to consider. The district court concluded that it “must decline that invitation.” 10 On March 12, 1998, Mejia filed a Notice of Appeal of the district court’s decision and, on March 13, 1998, moved for an emergency stay of his deportation. On the same day, Judge Tjoflat temporarily stayed Mejia’s deportation, and on March 26, 1998, Judge Tjoflat ordered that “[t]he stay of [Mejia’s] deportation shall continue pending resolution of Richardson v. Reno, No. 98-04230.”