Opinion ID: 710073
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Lack Of A Concrete Meaning

Text: 76 Despite the copious number of decisions addressing whether or not certain categories of crimes are or are not crimes involving moral turpitude, the courts have rarely been able to strike upon a concrete meaning of the phrase. For example, the Supreme Court in Jordan had no difficulty in finding that a crime with an element of fraud was a crime involving moral turpitude, because of a substantial body of precedent so holding. Jordan, 341 U.S. at 227-29, 71 S.Ct. at 705-07. However, when asked to decide whether the phrase crime involving moral turpitude in the deportation statute was void for vagueness, the Court pulled what I must respectfully suggest was an intellectual sleight of hand. See Id. at 230-32, 71 S.Ct. at 707-09. 77 The Court first acknowledged that deportation is a drastic measure, then recognized that the purpose of the void for vagueness doctrine was to ensure that criminal statutes placed persons on notice of the consequences of their conduct. Id. at 230-31, 71 S.Ct. at 707-08. Thus, the Court found, the test was whether the language conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. Id. at 231-32, 71 S.Ct. at 708 (citing Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926), for this test). However, rather than grappling with whether the phrase crime involving moral turpitude conveyed any definite warning at all, the Court again referred to precedent:Whatever else the phrase crime involving moral turpitude may mean in peripheral cases, the decided cases make it plain that crimes in which fraud was an ingredient have always been regarded as involving moral turpitude. We have recently stated that doubt as to the adequacy of a standard in less obvious cases does not render that standard unconstitutional for vagueness. See Williams v. United States, [341 U.S. 97, 71 S.Ct. 576, 95 L.Ed. 774 (1951) ]. But there is no such doubt present in this case. Fraud is the touchstone by which this case should be judged. The phrase crime involving moral turpitude has without exception been construed to embrace fraudulent conduct. We therefore decide that Congress sufficiently forewarned respondent that the statutory consequence of twice conspiring to defraud the United States is deportation. 78 Id. at 232, 71 S.Ct. at 708. Herein lies the Court's sleight of hand: the phrase crime involving moral turpitude had a concrete meaning and conveyed sufficiently definite warning in the Jordan case only because courts had always held that the kind of crime in question fits the standard, whatever that standard may mean. Thus, as long as a case requires the court to tread only the familiar territory of well-cultivated precedent, the phrase crime involving moral turpitude provides no uncomfortable uncertainty. 19 But I repeat, this is not such a case. Rather, this is one of those uncomfortable peripheral or less obvious cases in which the standard, even if its adequacy were free from doubt, id., is plainly of dubious certainty in its application. Does the phrase convey any definite warning that the conduct in question here would fall within the standard? More importantly, since vagueness is not the issue here, is anyone, including the BIA, able to define the meaning of the phrase, and is the BIA's definition reasonable, or merely capricious? 79 The dissenting justices in Jordan recognized that these very questions were unresolved. In a stinging dissent, Justice Jackson, writing for himself and Justices Black and Frankfurter, described an alien who is deported for conviction of one or more crimes involving moral turpitude as being punished with a life sentence of banishment in addition to the punishment which a citizen would suffer for the identical acts. Id. at 232, 71 S.Ct. at 708 (Jackson, J., dissenting). The dissenting justices believe[d] the phrase 'crime involving moral turpitude,' found in the Immigration Act, has no sufficiently definite meaning to be a constitutional standard for deportation. Id. (Jackson, J., dissenting). Justice Jackson found that [w]hat the Government seeks, and what the Court cannot give, is a basic definition of 'moral turpitude' to guide administrators and lower courts. Id. Except for the Court's opinion, Justice Jackson wrote, there appears to be universal recognition that we have here an undefined and undefinable standard. The parties agree that the phrase is ambiguous and have proposed a variety of tests to reduce the abstract provision of this statute to some concrete meaning. Id. at 235, 71 S.Ct. at 710. It is just such a reduction to concrete meaning that is necessary in this case, involving as it does a case on the periphery of settled territory. No reasonably concrete definition has been forthcoming in this case, but only what I find to be a capricious determination of the deportability of one person setting a dangerous precedent for anecdotal decision making. 80 Unlike the majority in Jordan, the dissenting justices attempted to find a concrete definition of the phrase crime involving moral turpitude, rather than simply an anecdotal one. Here, the dissenters were frustrated: 81 [T]he phrase crime involving moral turpitude ... is not one which has settled significance from being words of art in the profession. If we go to the dictionaries, the last resort of the baffled judge, we learn little except that the expression is redundant, for turpitude alone means moral wickedness or depravity and moral turpitude seems to mean little more than morally immoral. The Government confesses that it is a term that is not clearly defined, and says: the various definitions of moral turpitude provide no exact test by which we can classify the specific offenses here involved. 82 Jordan, 341 U.S. at 234-35, 71 S.Ct. at 709-10 (Jackson, J., dissenting). 20 After reviewing attempts to define the phrase in administrative and judicial decisions, the frustrated dissenters threw up their hands: 83 The lower court cases seem to rest, as we feel this Court's decision does, upon the moral reactions of particular judges to particular offenses. What is striking about the opinions in these moral turpitude cases is the wearisome repetition of cliches attempting to define moral turpitude, usually a quotation from Bouvier. But the guiding line seems to have no relation to the result reached. The chief impression from the cases is the caprice of the judgments. 84 Id. at 239, 71 S.Ct. at 712 (Jackson, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). 21 As both my statement of the standard of review and that of the majority indicate, moral reactions of particular judges to particular offenses is not a proper basis for determining whether any particular crime is or is not one in which moral turpitude necessarily inheres; rather, the court must decide the question of whether the alien has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude based on a categorical assessment of the crime of conviction, not the facts of the particular case. See, e.g., Ramsey, 55 F.3d at 583 (BIA and court must look to nature of crime, not facts of the particular case); Rodriguez-Herrera, 52 F.3d at 239-40; Gonzalez-Alvarado, 39 F.3d at 246; Reyes-Castro, 13 F.3d at 379; Goldeshtein, 8 F.3d at 647; McNaughton, 612 F.2d at 459; Robinson, 51 F.2d at 1022-23. To what dictionary or other source did the INS turn to discover its meaning for a crime involving moral turpitude, and, more importantly, to what dictionary or other source did the INS turn in concocting a meaning for the phrase that encompassed reckless conduct? How universal is the definition upon which the INS has struck? How reasonable? Is that definition the result of the caprice the Jordan dissenters found so prevalent in moral turpitude cases? I will consider these questions below. 85