Court Opinion

ID: 9569158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:10:59.810854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:49:55.376228
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Today the court holds that Hawaii’s hit- and-run statute does not define a crime involving moral turpitude for purposes of removal under the immigration laws. With respect, I believe the majority arrives at its counter-intuitive holding by misapplying three of our precedents, and therefore I must dissent.
This case turns on whether Latu’s conviction for violating Hawaii Revised Statutes section 291C-12.5 amounts to a crime involving moral turpitude, providing grounds for removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i). Haw.Rev.Stat. section 291C-12.5 (which incorporates section 291C-14 by reference) is violated if either (1) a driver involved in an accident fails to stop and to provide certain information1 or (2) a driver fails to stop and to provide reasonable assistance to an injured driver. Although the majority does not say so explicitly, it is unlikely that its members would disagree with me that the conduct described in the second prong constitutes a crime involving moral turpitude under the categorical approach. The rub, therefore, is in the first prong and there I will focus my discussion.
I
The majority’s first mistake is to jump to the conclusion that our reasoning in Cerezo v. Mukasey, 512 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir.2008), controls this case. It is true that in Cerezo we held that a violation of California Vehicle Code section 20001(a), a statute substantially similar to the Hawaii statute at issue here, was not a crime involving moral turpitude under the categorical approach. See Cerezo, 512 F.3d at 1169. The majority simply points to the similarity between the language of the two statutes as if that were conclusive. If these were federal statutes, it might be. But since these are state statutes, which “only state courts may authoritatively con*1077strue,” its analysis is flawed. See BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 577, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 (1996).
To be sure, in Cerezo we began our analysis by noting that, “[rjeading section 20001(a) literally, a driver in an accident resulting in injury who stops and provides identification, but fails to provide a vehicle registration number, has violated the statute.” 512 F.3d at 1167. But our analysis continued by carefully heeding the Supreme Court’s recent admonition that we may not consider “a theoretical possibility! ] that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183, 127 S.Ct. 815, 817,166 L.Ed.2d 683 (2007)). Mindful of Duenas-Alvarez, we tentatively observed that “where, as here, the state statute plainly and specifically criminalizes conduct outside the contours of a federal definition, we do not engage in judicial prestidigitation by concluding that the statute” passes muster under the categorical approach. Id. at 1167.
All the same, Cerezo’s holding ultimately rested on our observation that “California courts have [not] interpreted the scope of section 20001(a) more narrowly so as to make it applicable only to conduct which involved moral turpitude.” Id. at 1167-68 (citing Gore, 517 U.S. at 577, 116 S.Ct. 1589). The majority seems to brush over the importance of this point. If California courts had narrowed section 20001(a), the unadulterated language of the statute would no longer have controlled — the statute would cover whatever the state’s courts construed it to cover. But the state courts had in fact done the contrary in Cerezo. California precedent expressly holds that “ ‘[t]he various requirements of [section 20001] are set forth in the conjunctive and omission to perform any one of the acts required constitutes an offense.’” Id. at 1168 (quoting People v. Newton, 155 Cal.App.4th 1000, 66 Cal.Rptr.3d 422, 424-25 (2007)) (emphasis added). Even with this broadening, rather than narrowing, precedent, we found the “issue” in the case to be “close.” Id. at 1168.
Here, by contrast, Hawaii case law does not similarly construe section 291C-12.5 to criminalize the failure to provide any of the required information. On the contrary, such precedent construes section 291C-12.5, together with section 291C-14, as requiring, in relevant part, self-identification sufficient to facilitate subsequent findings of liability. See State v. Chen, 77 Hawai'i 329, 884 P.2d 392, 400 (Haw.Ct.App.1994) (“The purpose of statutes like [Haw.Rev.Stat. section 291C-12.5] ... is to protect those injured ... and [to] facilitate a determination of civil and criminal liability.”) (final alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also State v. Liuafi, 1 Haw.App. 625, 623 P.2d 1271, 1282 (1981) (“The information required to be given by HRS section 291C-14 ... is information necessary to resolve questions of civil liability.”).
Having focused entirely on statutory language to the exclusion of judicial construction, the majority unfortunately overlooks that the orientation of relevant state law in this case is contrary to its orientation in Cerezo. There, California case law broadened the applicability of the relevant statute; here, Hawaii case law narrows it. By speculating nonetheless that a defendant in Hawaii could be convicted for stopping at the scene of an accident and furnishing his name, address, and driver’s license, but not his vehicle registration number, the majority engages in precisely the “legal imagination” prohibited by Duenas-Alvarez, 127 S.Ct. at 822. That is, it considers the theoretical possibility that Hawaiian courts would apply section *1078291C-12.5 beyond its established scope and purpose. Since there simply is no Hawaii precedent construing section 291C-12.5 in a manner remotely similar to the California precedent considered in Cerezo, I fail to see how Cerezo can possibly control this case.
The majority’s attempt to cast doubt on the usefulness of Hawaiian precedent in construing sections 291C-12.5 and 291C-14 likewise misses the point. See Maj. Op. at 1073-74. Under Duenas-Alvarez, it is Latu’s burden to point to Hawaii precedent showing that a conviction under section 291C-12.5 reasonably might be founded on conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime involving moral turpitude. Therefore, even if all of the foregoing Hawaii case law were not binding for some reason, Latu would still have failed to point to any cases construing section 291C-12.5 as narrowly as he urges us to construe it.
II
The majority missteps again in its rejection of the government’s alternative argument that the first prong of Haw.Rev.Stat. section 291C-12.5 covers conduct involving moral turpitude because inherently fraudulent.
Since Hawaii’s statute does not require on its face that the perpetrator had an intent to defraud, we can only infer such intent where it is “implicit in the nature of the crime.” Goldeshtein v. INS, 8 F.3d 645, 648 (9th Cir.1993) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). As the majority correctly points out, to meet this test “the criminalized conduct must necessarily involve false representations or deceit for the purpose of gaining something of value.” Navarro-Lopez v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 1063, 1076 n. 2 (9th Cir.2007) (en banc). However, the majority seems to have a somewhat cramped view of what this actually requires.
The majority relies heavily on our decisions in Navarro-Lopez and Blanco v. Mukasey, 518 F.3d 714 (9th Cir.2008), to support its conclusion that the failure to provide the requisite information in violation of section 291C-12.5 is not a misrepresentation for the purpose of gaining something of value. In Navarro-Lopez, the concurrence remarked that the benefit a perpetrator of an inherently fraudulent crime must obtain “is not the evasion of criminal penalties, but rather something more tangible, such as money, a passport, naturalization papers, or an occupational deferment from military service.” 503 F.3d at 1077 (Reinhardt, J., concurring for a majority of the court) (citations omitted) (holding that accessory after the fact is not a crime involving moral turpitude). Blan-co reiterated the same point, stating that “[w]hen the only ‘benefit’ the individual obtains is to impede the enforcement of the law, the crime does not involve moral turpitude.” 518 F.3d at 719 (holding that providing false identification to a police officer is not a crime involving moral turpitude). These cases are certainly useful for resolving the issue before us, but they point in a direction opposite to the one the majority pursues.
It helps to take note of the conduct Hawaii has targeted by means of sections 291C-12.5 and 291C-14. Based upon a review of state cases construing section 291C-14, it appears that the purpose of the statute’s self-identification prong is to facilitate subsequent findings of civil and criminal liability. See Chen, 884 P.2d at 401 (citing Wylie v. State, 797 P.2d 651, 657 (Alaska Ct.App.1990) (holding that an identical Alaskan statute was enacted to prevent parties to an accident from “evading liability” for the accident “by escaping before their identity can be established”)). Accordingly, implicit in the nature of a defendant’s failing to provide such information is that he sought to evade not just *1079criminal liability, but also civil liability, with its associated insurance costs and damages. Thus, in contrast to the conduct considered in Blanco and Navarro-Lopez, one who leaves the scene of an accident without identifying himself has surely obtained a financial benefit.
The majority seems to think that Blanco and Navarro-Lopez require that the perpetrator obtain something he can actually hold in his hand. It is true that Judge Reinhardt’s concurrence in Navarro-Lopez opinion used the word “tangible,” but the context strongly suggests that this referred to anything of non-speculative monetary value. After all, the opinion cited cases where the perpetrator obtained securities — nowadays often recorded in a computer instead of on a stock certificate — and even military deferment. See Navarro-Lopez, 503 F.3d at 1077 (Reinhardt, J., concurring) (citing cases). Blanco cited the same list of cases. 518 F.3d at 719 (same). Neither opinion, on which the majority so heavily relies, appears to make the distinction the majority implicitly makes between deception to obtain hard assets and deception to avoid debts and civil damages.
Or perhaps the majority does not regard the avoidance of debts as a financial benefit. Indeed, the majority’s cursory treatment of this question suggests that it simply regards criminal liability and civil liability as equivalent. See Maj. Op. at 1075 (“Thus, similar to Blanco, the statute imposes a duty to society not to impede a finding of liability, but it does not require an intent to obtain something tangible.”). But surely there is no controversy in the tax code’s treatment of discharge of indebtedness as income, see 26 U.S.C. section 61(a)(12); and what is potential civil liability but a debt, discounted by the probability of its ultimately coming due? It is precisely that kind of debt the avoidance of which sections 291C-12.5 and 291C-14 criminalize. See Chen, 884 P.2d at 401.
The majority ends by returning to the fact that the Hawaii statute does not “on its face ... involve fraud.” Maj. Op. at 1075. This is a curious non sequitur, since the entire analysis on this issue had assumed that fact. Though its opinion is a bit confusing on this point, I suspect that the majority is worried that someone could be convicted under section 291C-12.5 without a showing of fraudulent intent. But while we might speculate that the Hawaiian government would prosecute an individual who did not have an intent to defraud — say, someone who leaves the scene of an accident to attend to an emergency— the Supreme Court has expressly foreclosed such speculation. See Duenas-Alvarez, 127 S.Ct. at 822 (“[T]o find that a state statute creates a crime outside the generic definition of a listed crime in a federal statute ... requires a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.”). It is, again, Latu’s burden “to point to his own case or other cases in which the state courts in fact did apply the statute in [a] special (non-generic) manner.” Id. Latu has simply failed to carry such burden.
Accordingly, I have no alternative but to conclude, contra the majority, that the first prong of section 291C-12.5 inherently requires that an individual has acted with an intent to evade civil and criminal liability for the accident. That is, it involves “deceit for the purpose of gaining something of value,” Navarro-Lopez, 503 F.3d at 1076 n. 2, and therefore categorically is a crime involving moral turpitude, see Carty v. Ashcroft, 395 F.3d 1081, 1082 (9th Cir.2005) (concluding that “intent to evade” and “intent to defraud” are synonymous for purposes of assessing whether a statute is a crime involving moral turpitude); *1080see also Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 71 S.Ct. 703, 95 L.Ed. 886 (1951) (holding that the offense of evading liquor taxes is a crime involving moral turpitude).2
Ill
The majority stops there, having determined that the first prong of section 291C-12.5 is not a crime involving moral turpitude. Because I disagree with that determination, I would continue the analysis to the second prong, which, to paraphrase, punishes the failure to stop and to provide reasonable assistance to an injured driver. Here I find the terrain far smoother.
“[A] crime other than fraud must be more than serious; it must offend the most fundamental moral values of society, or as some would say, ‘shock[] the public conscience.’ ” Navarro-Lopez, 503 F.3d at 1074-75 (Reindardt, J., concurring) (final alteration in original) (quoting Medina v. United States, 259 F.3d 220, 227 (4th Cir.2001)). “A crime involving the willful commission of a base or depraved act is a crime involving moral turpitude, whether or not the statute requires proof of evil intent.” Gonzalez-Alvarado v. INS, 39 F.3d 245, 246 (9th Cir.1994) (per curiam); see also Notash v. Gonzales, 427 F.3d 693, 698 (9th Cir.2005) (“[T]he word ‘wilful’ means no more than that the forbidden act is done deliberately and with knowledge.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).
A conviction under section 291C-12.5 requires, at minimum, that the defendant acted with recklessness. See Haw.Rev. Stat. section 702-204. Accordingly, conviction under the second prong of sections 291C-12.5 and 291C-14 requires proof that the defendant knew of the likelihood that an individual in an accident might have been substantially injured, and yet consciously disregarded such risk by failing reasonably to assist such person. Indeed, a conviction may rest on a driver’s failure to do so much as to stop and to check whether a person injured in the accident requires assistance. Two of our sister circuits, considering similar reckless conduct, have held that such wilful disregard of a risk of harm is sufficiently “base and depraved” as to involve moral turpitude. See Knapik v. Ashcroft, 384 F.3d 84, 89-90 (3d Cir.2004) (upholding BIA determination that reckless endangerment is a crime involving moral turpitude); Franklin v. INS, 72 F.3d 571, 573 (8th Cir.1995) (upholding BIA determination that involuntary manslaughter, where alien “recklessly cause[d] the death of her child by consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk to life,” is a crime involving moral turpitude).
Thus, I agree with the Fifth Circuit that the failure to confer reasonable assistance to the victim of an accident “is both morally reprehensible and contrary to the accepted rules of morality in our society.” Garcia-Maldonado, 491 F.3d at 290. An individual involved in an accident, and who therefore knows that others may have been injured in it, owes a moral duty to stop at the scene of the accident and to *1081provide what reasonable assistance is possible; to shirk that duty and to flee from the scene is a base and depraved act. Accordingly, I would hold failing to confer reasonable assistance to an individual injured in an accident as required by Haw. Rev.Stat. section 291C-12.5 categorically is a crime involving moral turpitude.
IV
Because both prongs of Haw.Rev.Stat. section 291C-12.5 define crimes involving moral turpitude, I would hold that the statute categorically prohibits such crimes for purposes of alien removal. Therefore, I would deny the petition for review. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. This refers to the following specific information: "the driver’s name, address, and the registration number of the vehicle the driver is driving, and ... the driver’s license or permit to drive.” Haw.Rev.Stat. § 291C-14(a).

. I note that Cerezo apparently misconstrued Garcia-Maldonado v. Gonzales, 491 F.3d 284 (5th Cir.2007), as holding that a Texas statute, Tex. Transp. Code Ann. section 550.021, with two prongs substantially similar to the Hawaii statute in this case, is not a crime involving moral turpitude under the categorical approach. Cerezo, 512 F.3d at 1169. The Fifth Circuit provided no analysis as to whether the first prong of section 550.021 was a crime involving moral turpitude, instead focusing on the second prong, which was the basis for Garcia-Maldonado's conviction. See Garcia-Maldonado, 491 F.3d at 289. Moreover, even if the Cerezo interpretation were correct, Garcia-Maldonado did not consider whether violating section 550.021 involves fraudulent conduct. See id. at 288. With respect to the first prong, therefore, Garcia-Maldonado is inapposite.