Justices side with Mexican immigrant in deportation case
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with a Mexican immigrant who faced deportation after he was convicted of having consensual sex with his underage girlfriend.
The justices ruled unanimously that while Juan Esquivel-Quintana committed a crime under California law, his conduct did not violate federal immigration law.
The opinion comes as the Trump administration steps up enforcement of the nation's immigration laws, including deporting those who commit crimes. Immigration arrests have increased 38 percent this year, compared with a similar period last year.
California law makes it a crime to have sex with anyone under 18 if the age difference is more than three years. That applied to Esquivel-Quintana, who had sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend before and after his 21st birthday.
But Esquivel-Quintana said his conduct would have been legal under federal law and the laws of 43 other states that are less strict. The government argued that courts should defer to immigration officials in interpreting laws that are vague.
Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said the generic federal definition of sexual abuse of a minor requires the victim to be younger than 16. Since Esquivel-Quintana's conduct did not constitute sexual abuse under federal immigration laws, Thomas said the state conviction did not count as an aggravated felony and he could not be deported.
Esquivel-Quintana moved to the United States with his family when he was 12 and became a lawful permanent resident. He served 90 days in jail after pleading no contest to the California charges involving sex with a minor.
He later moved to Michigan, where federal officials began deportation proceedings. Immigration officials said he was convicted of "sexual abuse of a minor" - a deportable offense under federal immigration laws.
An immigration judge said he should be deported and the Board of Immigration Appeals agreed. A divided federal appeals court affirmed that ruling.
Esquivel-Quintana has been living in Mexico since being deported but now plans to return to the U.S., his lawyer, Michael Carlin, said.
Justice Neil Gorsuch took no part in the case, which was argued before he joined the Supreme Court.
Court suspends wrong lawyer over 'mistaken identity'
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - When the Supreme Court suspended a prominent Massachusetts lawyer and threatened him with disbarment, it started a Boston legal drama that took two weeks to resolve.
It ended on Tuesday, when the court acknowledged it had the wrong guy in an order attributing its earlier action to "mistaken identity."
The wrong guy, it turned out, was Christopher Patrick Sullivan, a partner with the Robins Kaplan firm in Boston and the incoming president of the Massachusetts Bar Association.
The mix-up arose from a disciplinary notice the court received from a New York State court concerning a Christopher P. Sullivan, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. This Sullivan is in prison in Vermont, following his conviction for drunken driving that resulted in the death of a 71-year-old woman in 2013.
Sullivan's middle name also is Paul, not Patrick, and he has never a member of the Supreme Court bar. But, like the other Sullivan, he apparently went to law school at Fordham in New York and the record the Supreme Court received contained only a middle initial, Arberg said.
In a surprisingly sloppy piece of work for a court that sometimes debates the placement of a comma, the court clerk's office determined that the New York notice was talking about the same Sullivan who belongs to the high court bar. The order the court issued on May 15 said that Christopher Patrick Sullivan of Boston "is suspended from the practice of law in this Court."
When the order came out, Sullivan's law firm knew a mistake had been made, said Anthony A. Froio, the managing partner in the firm's Boston office. His partner had practiced law for more than 40 years and was involved in a trial in Baltimore.
"We called the court and they couldn't have been more swift in verifying they had the wrong Christopher P. Sullivan," Froio said.
The court receives discipline notices from courts around the country and compares those lists to the roster of lawyers who can practice in front of the justices. When there's a match, the court initiates its own disbarment proceeding, which begins with a suspension and an order to explain why the lawyer should not be kicked out of the Supreme Court bar.
Arberg said Sullivan's was not the first case of mistaken identity, though she could provide no details.
Police in California shooting case supported by court
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A unanimous Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with sheriff's deputies in a legal dispute stemming from 2010, when an innocent couple was shot while California deputies searched for a wanted man.
The justices overturned an award of $4 million in damages to the couple and ordered a lower court to take another look at whether the deputies should be held liable for the shooting.
Deputies were searching for a parolee when they entered the backyard shack in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles. Seeing an armed man, they fired shots that seriously wounded him and his pregnant girlfriend.
But the man wasn't the suspect they were searching for, and it turned out he was carrying a BB gun. A federal appeals court ruled that the deputies were liable because they provoked a violent confrontation by entering the shack without a warrant.
Justice Samuel Alito said such a "provocation rule" is not compatible with excessive force claims under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. If the officers were reasonable in using force to defend themselves, Alito said, a court should not go back in time to see whether the incident was provoked.
"We hold that the Fourth Amendment provides no basis for such a rule," Alito said. "A different Fourth Amendment violation cannot transform a later, reasonable use of force into an unreasonable seizure."
Deputies had been told before they entered the cluttered backyard that a man and woman were living in a shack there, according to court records. When they opened the door, one of the officers saw a man holding a gun, shouted "gun" and two officers fired 15 shots.
The man, Angel Mendez, said he had picked up his BB gun at the time officers entered in order to move it. As a result of the shooting, Mendez's leg had to be amputated below the knee. His girlfriend was shot in the back.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in the case, which was argued before he joined the high court.
In other action on Tuesday, the justices:
- Ruled that patent owners generally can't restrict the resale of their products. The decision came in a case in which Lexmark International sought to prevent the re-use of its printer toner cartridges. The justices ruled in favor of Impression Products, which takes empty Lexmark cartridges, fills them with toner and sells them at a discount. The court held that Lexmark's patent rights end with the initial sale of the cartridges, whether in the United States or abroad.
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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
Published: Thu, Jun 01, 2017
