Court Opinion

ID: 9496068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:17:24.782247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:21.317277
License: Public Domain

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I am pleased to concur in the judgment. I write to clarify that the offense of Driving Under the Influence (“DUI”) with a suspended license, as defined by Arizona Revised Statute § 28-697(A)(l), is not a deportable crime of moral turpitude as a matter of either Ninth Circuit or BIA caselaw. The source of confusion may very well be the BIA’s schizophrenic law on the subject. Compare Matter of Lopez-Meza, 22 I. & N. Dec. 1188 (B.I.A. 1999) (holding that a DUI with a suspended license is a crime of moral turpitude), with Matter of Torres-Varella, 23 I. & N. Dec. 78 (B.I.A.2001) (en banc) (holding that DUI with two prior DUI offenses is not a crime of moral turpitude).
Whether a state statute defines a de-portable crime involving moral turpitude is a legal issue we review de novo. See Luu-Le v. INS, 224 F.3d 911, 914 (9th Cir. 2000); Goldeshtein v. INS, 8 F.3d 645, 647 (9th Cir.1993); see also Torres-Varella, 23 I. & N. Dec. at 82-84 (recognizing that a “crime involving moral turpitude” is a matter of federal law subject to judicial interpretation, and looking to Ninth Circuit case law when analyzing a conviction within its jurisdiction). Even if we were to defer to the BIA’s interpretation of whether a state criminal statute describes a crime of moral turpitude, “we are not obligated to accept an interpretation that is contrary to the plain and sensible meaning of the statute.” Randhawa v. Ashcroft, 298 F.3d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir.2002) (citing Beltran-Tirado v. INS, 213 F.3d 1179, 1185 (9th Cir.2000) and INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 424-425, 119 S.Ct. 1439, 143 L.Ed.2d 590 (1999)).
Nothing in either the federal or the Arizona statutes suggests that the regulatory offense of DUI becomes an inherently base, vile and deportable “crime of moral turpitude” simply because the offender’s driver’s license has been suspended. The BIA’s own case law casts substantial doubt on its anomalous holding to the contrary: according to the en banc BIA, even a three-time DUI offender has not committed a crime of moral turpitude. Torres-Varella, 23 I. & N. Dec. at 86. Applying the analysis in Torres-Varella to this case makes clear that Arizona Revised Statute § 28-697(A)(l) should not be construed any differently from § 28-697(A)(2). See Torres-Varella, 23 I. & N. Dec. at 84 (citing Matter of Short, 20 I. & N. Dec. 136, 137 (B.I.A.1989)). Neither subsection describes a crime of moral turpitude. See Goldeshtein v. INS, 8 F.3d 645, 647 (9th Cir.1993).