Court Opinion

ID: 9497015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:41:34.398964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:57.389341
License: Public Domain

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While not needed to decide this case, I think that an explanation of the current state of the law in this complicated area, and how it relates to the case before us, may be useful. Accordingly, and with that end in mind, I write a few pages separately-
*641I.
In St. Cyr I, this court did three things. See St. Cyr v. INS, 229 F.3d 406 (2d Cir.2000).
First, we held that aliens who pled guilty to certain deportable offenses at a time when they were eligible for 212(c) relief remained eligible even after the AEDPA and the IIRIRA eliminated such relief. Id. at 420-21. We did this, not because we could say that Congress clearly meant these laws to apply only prospectively, but because Landgraf’s presumption against retroactivity required such an interpretation. See Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994). We found Landgraf’s presumption to apply because we concluded that a significant number of aliens who pled guilty did so in the reasonable expectation that 212(c) relief would remain a possibility despite their conviction. St. Cyr I, 229 F.3d at 418-21.
Second, in dicta, we rejected the notion that aliens who committed a crime when 212(c) relief was available would continue to be eligible for that relief even after the AEDPA and the IIRIRA had abolished it. Id. at 418. That is, a) we stated that any reliance, in committing a crime, on the availability of 212(c) relief was not the kind of rebanee that triggered Landgraf’s presumption against retroactivity, and b) we implied that other considerations mentioned in Landgraf (like notice) were not sufficiently implicated in the context of such pre-enactment criminal conduct to give rise to a Landgraf presumption.
Third, we suggested in our reasoning- — • but we did not yet hold — that an alien’s decision to go to trial did not give rise to Landgraf reliance and expectation interests. Id. at 419.
The latter two sets of dicta became the law of the circuit following our holdings in Domond v. INS, 244 F.3d 81, 86 (2d Cir.2001) (“As we noted in St. Cyr, ‘[i]t would border on the absurd to argue’ that Do-mond would have decided not to commit a crime if he had known that he not only could be imprisoned, but also could face deportation without the availability of a discretionary waiver of deportation.”) (citing St. Cyr I, 229 F.3d at 418), and Rankins v. Reno, 319 F.3d 93, 99 (2d Cir.2003) (“We cannot ... ignore the strong signals sent in [the St. Cyr decisions] that aliens who chose to go to trial are in a different position with respect to IIRIRA than aliens like St. Cyr who chose to plead guilty.”).
In St. Cyr II, the Supreme Court agreed with our holding in St. Cyr I, and, like us, did so on the basis of the expectations that many aliens, reasonably, may have had when they pled guilty at a time when 212(c) relief was available. See INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001). The High Court did not address our dicta (which in Domond became a holding) rejecting the Landgraf anti-retroactivity presumption as to aliens who claimed that they relied on 212(c) relief when they committed their offenses. The Court also did not speak to the question (which our court later answered in the negative) of whether those aliens who opted to go to trial when 212(c) relief was available could claim that they made this decision in Landgraf-type reliance on the availability of 212(c) relief.
Despite the Supreme Court’s lack of consideration of whether pre-enactment criminal conduct implicated Landgraf’s anti-retroactivity presumption, aliens were quick to claim that St. Cyr II had overturned this court’s decision in Domond. But these contentions were readily rejected in Khan v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 521, 523-25 (2d Cir.2003). Similarly, aliens urged us to extend the Supreme Court’s holding *642in St. Cyr II to cover aliens who decided to go to trial, because, they argued, such aliens also had an expectation that 212(c) relief would be available to them if they were convicted. But, following the “strong signals” given by St. Cyr I and St. Cyr II, we held in Rankine v. Reno that, unlike aliens who decided to plead guilty, aliens who went to trial assumed no “similarly heightened expectation” of eligibility for 212(c) relief from that decision. 319 F.3d at 99-100. Aliens who elected to go to trial, we reasoned, cannot “plausibly claim that they would have acted any differently if they had known about AEDPA,” id. at 102 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
The amici in Rankine (criminal defense lawyers) advanced a more subtle reliance argument. They suggested that, had lawyers like them known that, under St. Cyr I and St. Cyr II, relief would continue to be a possibility following a guilty plea, and not remain available to those who chose to go to trial, they would have advised their clients to plead guilty. Hence, the argument continued, aliens who opted for trial were unfairly made subject to a retroactive change. Id. at 100 (“Amici claim that, as criminal defense lawyers, they would have counseled aliens like Rankine and Lawrence to seek pleas that preserved the possibility of § 212(c) waiver if they had known the true immigration consequences — post IIRIRA and AEDPA — of the decision to go to trial.”). This “second order retroactivity” argument, which has nothing in common with the argument that the case before us poses, is also quite different from any ordinary argument under Landgraf and its progeny, which are grounded in presumed congressional intent. In any event, this more complicated claim was also rejected by Rankine. Id. at 102.
In all of these cases, the critical question was whether the application of the AED-PA’s and the IIRIRA’s elimination of 212(c) relief to certain pre-enactment conduct would disrupt an alien’s reasonable reliance, settled expectations, or interest in fair notice. If it would, then such an application would be deemed to have an “impermissible retroactive effect,” St. Cyr II, 533 U.S. at 320, 121 S.Ct. 2271, thus triggering Landgraf’s presumption against retroac-tivity. One can summarize how this circuit has applied this framework as follows:
a) An alien’s commission of a crime at a time when 212(c) relief was available does not give rise to the kind of reliance, expectation, and notice interests protected by Landgraf, so Landgraf s presumption against retroactivity does not apply. Thus, there is no impediment to applying Congress’s elimination of 212(c) relief to this type of pre-enactment conduct (and this is so despite the fact that, were alteration of deportation rules a matter of criminal law, such a change would probably be barred by the Ex Post Facto Clause, see, e.g., Warden, Lewisburg Penitentiary v. Marrero, 417 U.S. 653, 663, 94 S.Ct. 2532, 41 L.Ed.2d 383 (1974));
b) An alien’s decision to go to trial at a time when 212(c) relief was available does not trigger Landgraf’s presumption against retroactivity. Thus, Congress’s elimination of 212(c) relief can be applied retroactively to such an alien, and this is so even if Congress’s elimination is read by the courts as not applying to those who pled guilty;
c) An alien’s decision to plead guilty to a deportable crime, at a time when 212(c) relief was available for those convicted of that crime, does give rise to reliance, expectation, and notice interests under Landgraf. Therefore, we will presume that Congress intended its *643subsequent abolition of 212(c) relief not to apply to those who so pled.
As to the Supreme Court, only “c” has been ruled on, and “a” and “b” remain technically open questions. With respect to “b,” there is, to date, no indication whatever that the Supreme Court would view the issue (either in its simple or more subtle form) differently from our circuit. As to “a,” it could be argued that the High Court’s recent preoccupation with constitutional restrictions on civil penalties in other areas, see, e.g., State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 123 S.Ct. 1513, 1519-21, 155 L.Ed.2d 585 (2003) (dealing with the substantive and procedural due process limitations that apply to punitive damage awards), together with its past comments on the severity of deportation, see, e.g., Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 231, 71 S.Ct. 703, 95 L.Ed. 886 (1951) (applying the void-for-vagueness doctrine to a deportation statute because, though not a criminal statute, the statute imposed a “drastic measure,” which is at times “the equivalent of banishment or exile”) (quoting Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6, 10, 68 S.Ct. 374, 92 L.Ed. 433 (1948)), might make the question a live one. But that would at most be speculation.
II.
None of the prior decisions, by our court or the Supreme Court, deal with the issue before us today, though they do speak indirectly to one aspect of it: whether the rule we uphold today should be applied categorically or only after a case-by-case examination of the existence of reliance. As a general matter, both the Supreme Court and our circuit have seemed to favor the categorical approach. Thus, as to those aliens who pled guilty when 212(c) relief was available for their crimes, the Supreme Court clearly barred retroactive abolition without requiring individualized allegations of reliance or expectations.1 Similarly, if conversely, in Swaby v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 156 (2d Cir.2004), we declined to bar retroactive abolition as to aliens who opted to go to trial, after expressly assuming arguendo that the individual alien had relied on the existence of 212(c) relief when he declined to accept a guilty plea and instead chose to fight at trial.2 That is, we also adopted a categorical rule as governing situations where Landgraf-based interests seem generally unlikely or inapplicable.
The preference for categorical rules seems to me to have two possible bases. First, what is involved in Landgraf-type *644cases is the presumption (or not) of congressional intent3 as to the temporal reach of the law, given how the hypothetical retroactive application of the law would affect “familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 270, 114 S.Ct. 1483. Given this focus on congressional intent, it is not surprising to find courts guided by the frequency with which the statute’s retroactive applications would violate settled expectations, etc. For it seems less likely that Congress would give a general statute a different effective date case by case.4 As a result, if in many cases those who pled guilty did so relying (at least in part) on the existence of 212(c) relief, the statute should be interpreted to be prospective only, even if such a reading may advantage some who did not so rely. (This is the result of St. Cyr I and St. Cyr II.) Similarly, if in a certain category of cases aliens were not guided in their choices by the expectation that 212(c) relief would remain available, then, even though a particular alien asserts that he was, the statute might well still be read to abolish that relief retroactively. (And this is precisely what we held in Swaby.)5
The second, perhaps less principled, rationale for categorical rules is based on convenience. The cost of teasing out individualized expectations, and the possibility of error — both ways — in doing so, are great enough so as to make the game not worth the candle. Thus, apart from the question of likely congressional intent, a categorical approach might well be preferred strictly as a matter of judicial economy.
The Supreme Court did not say why it opted for a categorical approach in St. Cyr II, and neither did our court in St. Cyr I and Swaby. And as far as the instant case is concerned, it does not necessarily matter, because the preference for a categorical approach on either ground need not be absolute. That is, if there are a fair number of cases in which settled expectations, etc., are violated by retroactive abolition of 212(c) relief, and a fair number in which they would not, it is possible to presume a Congressional intent that involves only partial retroactivity. Such a reading is not *645common, but it is not necessarily precluded. Similarly, if there are many cases that differ as to the existence of reasonable expectations, etc., the game of individuation may well be worth the candle.
That said, I personally doubt that individuation is appropriate in the case before us. I think it quite plausible that many aliens in fact relied on the continued existence of 212(c) relief when they opted not to seek that relief when it was available to them. In that regard, I do not see the significance of the government’s alternative explanation for aliens’ failure to seek 212(c) relief when it was available to them. The government suggests that, while some aliens may have delayed seeking 212(c) relief in order to wait until their case for such relief was stronger, others may have failed to do so hoping to delay the time that the INS would seek to deport them. Assuming arguendo that the latter is a plausible scenario, I do not see how it detracts from the presence of Landgraf interests. True, an alien, who believes that — if and when the INS may opt to try to deport him — 212(c) relief will be available, may well choose not to precipitate INS action by seeking such relief earlier. But, that is far from saying that the same alien would have failed to bring the issue to a head while 212(c) relief was available if that alien believed 212(c) relief would be abolished retroactively later on.
In other words, the alien would act in reliance on and in expectation of the continued availability of 212(c) relief, regardless of whether he delayed in order to make his 212(c) case stronger or to take advantage of the fact that the INS was, famously, slow and inconsistent in bringing deportation cases. As far as Landgraf is concerned, both motivations, it seems to me, are ones that are reasonably based on the expectation that 212(c) relief would be available. It is this kind of stake in the existing legal regime that Landgraf intended its presumption against retroactivity to protect. See Landgraf 511 U.S. at 265, 114 S.Ct. 1483 (stating that this presumption is rooted in the principle that “individuals should have an opportunity to know what the law is and to conform their conduct accordingly”).
For these reasons, I am inclined to think that a categorical reading of the statute would be preferable in the situation before us. And I would be so inclined even if— contrary to my view — the only motivation that were deemed to be acceptable under Landgraf was the quite likely desire to strengthen a 212(c) application. For I believe that that motivation was, in fact, frequently present. The precise issue, however, has not been briefed or argued to us, and it may well involve some fact finding. Accordingly, I much prefer to have the matter be considered first by the district court. I, therefore, concur fully with today’s holding, and with the panel’s decision to vacate and remand the case to the district court.

. It did so despite the fact that the First and Ninth Circuits had earlier opted for a case-by-case approach. See Mattis v. Reno, 212 F.3d 31, 40-41 (1st Cir.2000), Magana-Pizano v. INS, 200 F.3d 603, 613-14 (9th Cir.1999).

. As we explained in Swaby:
Petitioner attempts to distinguish Rankine by arguing that he detrimentally relied on the availability of § 212(c) relief, unlike the aliens in that case, when he rejected a plea offer made by the government. He attests in an affidavit, “I did not agree to the offered plea agreement because I wanted to prove my innocence and I understood that even if I received a sentence of a year or more, I could still apply for discretionary relief from deportation in Immigration Court.” Yet even accepting petitioner's uncorroborated, self-serving affidavit as true, his situation is not meaningfully different from that of the aliens in Rankine. He rejected the plea agreement, he attests, because he wanted to prove his innocence. By choosing to proceed to trial and relying on the possibility of proving his innocence, he did not detrimentally rely on the availability of § 212(c) relief.
We therefore conclude that the holding in Rankine is not an invitation to aliens, like petitioner, to offer individualized proof of their motivation in choosing to go to trial.
357 F.3d at 161-62.

. Of course, as Landgraf explained, if Congress has expressed its "clear intent,” 511 U.S. at 272, 114 S.Ct. 1483, that a statute operate retroactively, a court must implement that intent and "there is no need to resort to judicial default rules.” Id. at 280, 114 S.Ct. 1483.

. While it is not uncommon for the effective date of a statute to vary between category % and category y, it is unusual for the effective date to vary between an individual x and individual y, where these individuals are otherwise similarly situated. In other words, since the Landgraf inquiry is at bottom an exercise in statutory construction, our application of Landgraf should be sensitive to the types of effective-date provisions that Congress would and would not be likely to adopt. Since it would be rare for Congress to make the temporal reach of a statute turn on a fact-intensive determination about a particular party, reluctance to establish such an individualized mechanism via Landgraf is quite understandable.

. Of course, the holding in Swaby is limited to a situation in which, as the court says, the individual alien’s actual reliance seems unlikely at best. See Swaby, 357 F.3d at 161-62. Accordingly, it would seem probable — especially given Landgraf‘s emphasis on the unfairness of retroactive application as the source of the presumption against retroactivity, see Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 265, 268, 272-73, 282 n. 35, 114 S.Ct. 1483 — that the existence of a relatively small number of aliens who, in fact, reasonably relied would suffice to trigger an anti-retroactivity categorical interpretation. The alternative way to avoid the unfairness that Landgraf deplores, if there existed a very limited number of aliens who in fact reasonably relied, would inevitably be individualized limits on retroactive application of the statute.