Court Opinion

ID: 9494142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:30:25.799581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:14.535945
License: Public Domain

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
While I agree with the ultimate outcome the majority reaches, and I further agree with its interpretation and application of the rule announced in In re Lozada, 19 I. & N. Dec. 637, 1988 WL 235454 (BIA 1988), aff'd, 857 F.2d 10 (1st Cir. 1988), I cannot associate myself with the majority’s dicta with respect to the due process dimension of the right to counsel in immigration proceedings, nor with its rather pointed criticism of the Ninth Circuit’s immigration jurisprudence. The majority acknowledges, ante at 500, that the issue of a constitutional right to counsel in immigration cases is not ripe in this case, and I agree. In my opinion, that renders the subsequent discussion of that point unnecessary and, indeed, undesirable. I find its comments about the Ninth Circuit to be equally beside the point. Whatever the Ninth Circuit may think about the Lozada rules, it is clear that this court has approved them in the past. See Henry v. INS, 8 F.3d 426, 440 (7th Cir.1993). As long as we are content to adhere to our own prior jurisprudence, we need not delve deeply into the views of *505our sister circuits. Moreover, all manner of games are possible with statistics, and I note that even if there have been several Ninth Circuit immigration cases reversed by the Supreme Court, that Circuit hears about half of this country’s INS-related claims. (According to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Ninth Circuit heard 910 of the 1723 INS cases docketed in the United States Courts of Appeals- between October 1, 1999 and September 30, 2000, while our court heard just 60). That court’s win/ loss record in the Supreme Court thus may not be probative of very much.
The right to counsel point, as the INS itself has recognized, is more complex. I do not understand the majority to be taking the unsupportable position that the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments do not apply to civil cases, or (in the case of the Fifth Amendment) to immigration proceedings. Such a position would obviously be flatly inconsistent with a long fine of Supreme Court decisions. See, e.g., American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 49-50, 119 S.Ct. 977, 143 L.Ed.2d 130 (1999); Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924, 931-32, 117 S.Ct. 1807, 138 L.Ed.2d 120 (1997); United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U.S. 43, 53, 114 S.Ct. 492, 126 L.Ed.2d 490 (1993); Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 340-49, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). The only question therefore is whether, under some narrow set of circumstances, matters relating to the existence or quality of legal representation may ever rise to the level of a due process violation. I have no quarrel with the well established proposition that the Sixth Amendment “right to counsel,” and hence the test of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), does not apply in noncriminal proceedings. But, as the Supreme Court constantly reminds us, due process is a flexible concept, and I see no reason to make a categorical assumption that it will never be implicated in a counsel-related problem in an immigration case.
The labels “civil” and “criminal” for cases are imprecise in any event. While we might recognize a suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act as definitely “civil,” and a drug prosecution for distribution of cocaine as definitely “criminal,” there are many areas of federal law where this distinction becomes blurred. Habeas corpus is one, civil forfeitures in conjunction with criminal prosecutions is another, and immigration cases may well be a third. I note as well that our usual assumption about the ease with which someone dissatisfied with legal representation may bring a legal malpractice action is contestable in the kind of case the Stroes theoretically have. At best, they must conduct it from foreign shores. Most foreign plaintiffs might be able to travel to the United States to participate in their own lawsuit and to assist later counsel, but that option will not be available to the Stroes unless or until they obtain a new right to enter this country (a high hurdle, in their case). I see nothing unreasonable about the INS’s recognition that, lurking in some small number of its cases, there might be a genuine due process problem of constitutional dimension, and not just a problem of agency practice.
In any event, as the majority ultimately concedes, this is a debate for another day. As I noted earlier, I agree that the INS’s Lozada rule is a legally acceptable screen for weeding out cases of alleged ineffective assistance of counsel that cannot possibly rise to the level of a due process violation. I also agree that petitioners must do more than come up with any reason at all for their failure to file a complaint with bar authorities; their reason must be a good one, and the Board was entitled to con-*506elude that the reason the Stroes gave did not meet that standard. For those reasons, I concur in the judgment of the court.