Court Opinion

ID: 9477534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:25:31.663075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:55.418074
License: Public Domain

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
The court concludes in this case that the defendant’s deportation hearing was not *93fundamentally unfair. As a result, it declines to inquire whether the defendant was denied the right to judicial review of the order of deportation. I believe that Supreme Court precedent requires us to make such an inquiry. Consequently, I cannot join the court’s opinion.
I agree with the court that United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct. 2148, 95 L.Ed.2d 772 (1987) provides the standard for resolution of this appeal. I also agree that, under that standard, the defendant cannot obtain relief. I disagree only with the court’s interpretation of the case.
In the court’s view, Mendoza-Lopez sets forth a two-part test: a defendant challenging a prior deportation must prove first that his deportation hearing was fundamentally unfair, and second that, “in addition to being fundamentally unfair, the hearing effectively eliminated the right of the alien to challenge the hearing by means of judicial review_” Ante, at 91. The court properly notes that “the threshold for establishing [fundamental unfairness] is quite high.” Id., at 92. Indeed, the court’s listed examples of fundamental unfairness —the introduction of a coerced confession, complete denial of the right to counsel, and adjudication by a biased judge — are, I am confident, so obviously wrong that they rarely appear. The result of the court’s formulation, consequently, is that most cases will be decided on the ground that there was no fundamental unfairness, and the question of the right of judicial review will be left unresolved.
In my view, however, Mendoza-Lopez provides no support for an independent standard of fundamental fairness completely divorced from the question of judicial review. Instead, the Supreme Court analyzes the entire collateral attack problem in the context of judicial review. The Court endorses a single test: whether the violations as a whole amounted to a denial of judicial review. 107 S.Ct. at 2156. If they did, then the deportation cannot be used in the criminal case.
Unquestionably, Mendoza-Lopez is somewhat confusing in its discussion of fundamental fairness. The issue of fundamental fairness originally arose in the case because of a finding by the Court of Appeals that Mendoza-Lopez’s deportation proceeding lacked fundamental fairness. The Supreme Court said that it accepted the Court of Appeals’ finding. Id. The Court, however, never explicitly stated just what role that finding played in the resolution of the case. Thus, this court certainly cannot base its interpretation on any express language in the Supreme Court’s opinion.
In addition, however, several passages in the opinion seem to say unequivocally that the denial of the right of judicial review is, by itself, sufficient to prevent the government from making use of the deportation proceedings. For example, the Court said that it “decline[d] at this stage to enumerate which procedural errors are so fundamental that they may functionally deprive the alien of judicial review, requiring that the result of the hearing in which they took place not be used to support a criminal conviction.” Id. at 2155 n. 17 (emphasis added). The Court then noted that, while deportation proceedings are civil, and thus require procedures less stringent than in criminal cases, certain errors “could operate, under some circumstances, to deny effective judicial review of administrative determinations.” Id. (emphasis added). Similarly, the Court said, “If the violation of respondents’ rights.... amounted to a complete deprivation of judicial review of the determination, that determination may not be used to enhance the penalty for an unlawful entry under § 1326.” Id. at 2156 (emphasis added). Finally, the Court summarized:
Because respondents were deprived of their rights to appeal, and of any basis to appeal since the only relief for which they would have been eligible was not adequately explained to them, the deportation proceeding in which these events occurred may not be used to support a criminal conviction, and the dismissal of *94the indictments against them was therefore proper.
Id. at 2157.
These passages, in my opinion, demonstrate a different view of due process violations of the right to judicial review than the one put forward in the court’s opinion. Rather than setting forth a two-part test with distinct requirements of fundamental unfairness and a denial of judicial review, the entire focus of the Supreme Court’s opinion was on the denial of judicial review. The Court saw this denial as the wrong that prevented the use of the deportation order in the criminal proceeding.
It is possible to argue, of course, that the Supreme Court placed its focus on the denial of judicial review only because the government had conceded that the deportation hearing lacked fundamental fairness. Thus, one might argue that if a deportation hearing is fair, Mendoza-Lopez should not bar its use in a criminal case merely because of a technical defect in the right of judicial review. The Supreme Court’s language, however, cannot really be reconciled with the view that due process denials of the right of judicial review can amount only to technical defects. Instead, everything the Court says reflects the idea that a denial of the right of judicial review is so important that the government ought not to use the results of the flawed administrative proceeding as part of a criminal offense.
The essence of due process, after all, is fairness to the accused. If the government acts unfairly by denying an accused’s right to judicial review, the accused should not as a result suffer additional burdens. The accused does suffer such burdens if a deportation for which direct review was denied can be used against him in a later criminal case.
The court’s theory — that providing the accused with judicial review now completely remedies the failure to provide judicial review then — seems to me flawed. The court’s framework allows collateral review only of defects of fundamental fairness, and not of other defects, short of that strict standard, that might have prejudiced the defendant’s case. It is obvious that many defects which might cause reversal on direct appeal, such as insufficiency of the evidence, would not rise to the level of fundamental unfairness.
Finally, I note the Supreme Court’s concern that “[e]ven with this safeguard [of judicial review], the use of the result of an administrative proceeding to establish an element of a criminal offense is troubling.” Id. at 2155 n. 15. This provides an additional reason to examine closely such administrative proceedings, and to refuse to allow proceedings that are defective because of the denial of judicial review to be used in a criminal offense.
I do not believe that this defendant can demonstrate a denial of judicial review in his deportation hearing. The court, however, should decide that issue expressly rather than holding that a decision is not necessary,because the deportation was otherwise fundamentally fair.