We’re still only a few hours out from the release of today’s Supreme Court decision in Padilla v. Kentucky–-the facts and issues of which I’ve previously summarized here—and there’s no way I’m going to get through any kind of analysis of this thing without resorting to rank superlatives. So if you’ll indulge me, let’s run ‘em down right up front:

(1) Padilla is the single most significant stand that the Court has taken on behalf of the rights of non-citizens in my lifetime. It will provide a massive, widespread, immediate benefit for innumerable deserving¹ people, including many of my clients.

(2) Padilla has created the single most burdensome obligation that the Court has ever imposed upon the criminal defense bar.

(3) I have never had such thoroughly mixed reservations about a case that I should otherwise love so much.

Okay, deep breaths. Let’s break this down:

(1) What does Padilla mean for non-citizens?

As of today, any non-citizen present in the United States who enters a guilty plea to a criminal offense which will carry a “truly clear” consequence of future deportation (and, arguably, other immigration consequences) who is represented by counsel must be advised by their attorney of this consequence. In cases in which the immigration outcome is less certain (as it is in many, if not most criminal cases), counsel is obligated to advise that the plea may carry a risk of deportation. Non-citizens who have not been properly advised of these risks and/or consequence may be eligible to withdraw their pleas based upon ineffective assistance of counsel.²

(2) What does Padilla mean for criminal defense attorneys?

In a perfect world, the Supreme Court would have mailed courtesy copies of this decision to every criminal defense attorney in the United States firmly affixed to a very large bottle of J+B. Once the full implications of this ruling really start to sink in, most of them will be needing a stiff pour.

Simply put: Padilla requires the defense bar to learn a lot about federal immigration law, and very quickly. Imagine a baker who specializes in artisan breads arriving in the kitchen one morning to find that his boss has amended his job description to include the creation, production, and presentation of French pastries—with no concomitant training opportunities or salary increase. It’s kind of like that.

As of today, criminal defense attorneys throughout the United States are now required—upon pain of Constitutional ineffectiveness—to be conversant in all 33 definitions of the term “aggravated felony” outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as specific federal interpretations of each of these definitions and applications of these definitions to their local jurisdiction’s criminal statutes [PDF]. They will be expected to know exactly what does and does not constitute a “conviction”—a term which, under federal immigration law, is defined far more broadly than its equivalent in many states, including Massachusetts—and to have a working knowledge of how a client’s past criminal record may combine with the plea in question to raise a serious risk of deportation. They will be expected to have a working knowledge of “crimes of moral turpitude,” and to be able to articulate the legal and semantic differences between inadmissible and deportable offenses. They should probably learn a bit about mandatory detention [PDF] and the mechanics of immigration removal proceedings. This is, needless to say, a lot to learn at once, and replete with moving parts.

If you’ll allow me one more analogy: Padilla has drafted criminal attorneys to serve in the ranks of the armies of Immigrationland. It may not be what most of them signed up for, but they now have their marching orders and it seems that “theirs is not to make reply / theirs is not to question why.”

(3) What else is going on here?

Plenty. I’ll have more to say about this shortly, but here are a few immediate thoughts:

Padilla is kind of an interesting counterpoint to last year’s monumental Sixth Amendment ruling in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, in which the Court held that the government must introduce live supporting testimony from the chemist responsible for the analysis of a controlled substance before evidence of that substance may be used against a criminal defendant. Where Melendez-Diaz has caused massive systemic migraines for prosecutors and law enforcement, Padilla will now impose what I have to assume will be a comparable burden of time and resources upon the defense bar. In both cases, of course, the Court has been suspiciously quick to claim that these two sweeping, transformative decisions really won’t “commence [a] parade of horribles” (Melendez-Diaz) or “open the floodgates” (Padilla).

This is also the first time of which I’m aware that the Supreme Court has gone as far as to require defense counsel to be aware of a “collateral consequence” of a guilty plea. For as much as I hate slippery-slope arguments, there is a serious question here as to potential future challenges. What if a defendant isn’t informed that his conviction will leave him ineligible to receive federal student loan assistance? To serve in the U.S. military? To obtain a real estate license, or sit for a state bar exam? Do we need to provide each defendant with a checklist for these and every other possible potential future foreseeable consequence?

For as much as I wholeheartedly agree with Justice Stevens’s contention that the possibility of a lifetime of exile from the United States is perhaps the most serious collateral consequence imaginable, the fact remains that it is still a federal issue which is entirely separate from state-based criminal systems. Just a thought.

Again, though, these are all initial impressions within hours of first reading this decision. I’ll likely have more to say—including Massachusetts-specific analysis—once I’ve digested this thing a bit more, but my overall response (as an immigration practitioner, as least) is a feeling that justice has been done here. Despite my quibbling above, I fully agree with Justice Stevens:

Our longstanding Sixth Amendment precedents, the seriousness of deportation as a consequence of a criminal plea, and the concomitant impact of deportation on families living lawfully in this country demand no less.

1. And, arguably, not-so-deserving… [↩]
2. Far more will likely be limned from this 18-page opinion in the coming years, but I think that this is a pretty fair summary of the basic holding. [↩]

Matt Cameron