Court Opinion

ID: 9754395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:58:11.11704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:52.961157
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring:
Counsel for the government advised us at argument that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had deported Matos to the Dominican Republic while this appeal was pending. Under the circumstances, there is not very much that a ruling by this court favorable to Matos could have done for him. One is reminded of President Andrew Jackson’s perhaps apocryphal remark: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” 1
Despite the deportation, reversal of the trial court’s order would have potential collateral consequences for Matos. Accordingly, the case is not moot. On the merits, I agree that the judgment must be affirmed for the reasons stated in Part IV of Judge Terry’s opinion; the 1990 legislation now precludes the Superior Court from issuing a JRAD. In addition, as Judge Terry notes, Judge Suda stood in the shoes of the late Chief Judge Moultrie, and we cannot second-guess his decision that no JRAD would have been made. The remaining issues are more difficult,2 and, since it is not necessary to reach them, I would not do so.

. Horace Greeley, The American Conflict 1:106 (1864).

. If Matos’ former attorneys from the Public Defender Service were not ineffective when they failed to request a JRAD, I have difficulty faulting Matos, who speaks little English, for not having raised the issue more speedily. Moreover, deportation may constitute the severest kind of prejudice for a man whose children live in this country.