Court Opinion

ID: 9438894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:10:02.152556+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:00.102651
License: Public Domain

BYBEE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the judgment of the court because it is governed by our decision in Ledezma-Galicia v. Holder, 636 F.3d 1059, 2010 WL 5174979 (9th Cir.2010). Nevertheless, for the reasons I explained in my dissent to that opinion, I continue to believe that the court is wrong.
This case surely confirms my judgment. In Ledezma-Galicia, the court held that Ledezma — who had been convicted of sodomy for sexually molesting a minor — cannot be removed because the removal statute “does not apply to convictions, like Ledezma-Galicia’s, that occurred prior to November 18, 1988.” 636 F.3d at 1080, 2010 WL 5174979 at *20. As I pointed out, “the majority admitt[ed] that this creates ‘a small puncture in a broad shield’ because aliens are deportable for any number of offenses committed prior to 1988.” Id. (Bybee, J., dissenting). Today we hold that Congress intended this “small puncture” in the shield to extend to aliens such as Ramirez-Martinez, who was convicted of attempted murder on November 2,1988. As Justice Jackson once remarked, quoting Mark Twain: “The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.” SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 214, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947) (Jackson, J., dissenting). I reluctantly concur.