Ernesto Alonso Mejia Rodriguez v. U.S. Dept.

[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 09-14273 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JANUARY 4, 2011
________________________
JOHN LEY
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 08-20273-CV-JLK
ERNESTO ALONSO MEJIA RODRIGUEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(January 4, 2011)
Before CARNES, KRAVITCH and SILER,* Circuit Judges.
*
Honorable Eugene E. Siler, Jr., United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting
by designation.
PER CURIAM:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can grant temporary
protective status (TPS) to an otherwise removable alien unable to return to his
native country due to ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other
extraordinary and temporary conditions.1 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(1)(B)(i). An alien
who has been convicted of two or more misdemeanors, however, is ineligible for
TPS. 8 C.F.R. § 1244.4. Ernesto Alonzo Mejia Rodriguez (Mejia), a native and
citizen of Honduras, was denied renewal of his TPS in 2005 when the DHS’s
Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) concluded that he was ineligible
because of his misdemeanor convictions. Mejia filed a complaint in federal court
seeking a declaratory judgment that his 1986 guilty plea in state court to possession
of marijuana and driving with a suspended license was not a “conviction.” The
district court dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, but this court
reversed and remanded for consideration of the merits. Mejia Rodriguez v. U.S.
Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 562 F.3d 1137 (11th Cir. 2009).
This case is now before us a second time after the district court denied
Mejia’s claim on the merits. We must now decide whether a guilty plea and a
finding of guilt, with a sentence of time served, qualifies as a “conviction” under 8
1
We discussed TPS in detail in our previous decision. Mejia Rodriguez v. U.S. Dep’t of
Homeland Sec., 562 F.3d 1137 (11th Cir. 2009). We need not recount it here.
2
U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48). We hold that it does.
I.
Mejia entered the United States in November 1980 on a B-2 visa. He
overstayed his visa and was ultimately ordered to be deported. Mejia applied for
and received TPS after Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras. He was permitted to
renew his status from 1999 through 2004.
In 2005, however, the CIS rejected Mejia’s request for renewal, citing
several prior convictions as the basis for his ineligibility. All of the prior
convictions, except two, were later vacated. The remaining convictions on which
the CIS relied were a 1985 turnstile-jumping conviction, which Mejia concedes is a
conviction under § 1101(a)(48), and the 1986 “conviction” at issue here.
In 1986, Mejia was charged in state court with marijuana possession and
driving with a suspended license. According to the state-court records,2 Mejia’s
drug offense was disposed of by a “guilty plea, finding of guilty, and credit for
time served.”3
We must decide whether this 1986 plea satisfies the definition of
2
Mejia also submits an untitled state-court document with various court stamps on it.
The document is illegible and we will not guess at what it represents.
3
Mejia was arrested in January and the state court disposed of the case in July, but as
counsel stated at oral argument, we do not know how long Mejia was in custody.
3
“conviction.” We review an issue involving statutory interpretation de novo,
Ferguson v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 563 F.3d 1254, 1269 (11th Cir. 2009), cert. denied,
130 S.Ct. 1735 (2010), but we will defer to the agency’s interpretation “if it is
reasonable and does not contradict the clear intent of Congress.” Quinchia v. U.S.
Att’y Gen., 552 F.3d 1255, 1258 (11th Cir. 2008). If the intent of Congress is
clear, it controls, but where a statute is silent or ambiguous, the question is whether
the agency’s interpretation is based on a permissible construction of the statute.
See Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-43
(1984).
Section 1101(a)(48) defines a “conviction” as
a formal judgment of guilt of the alien entered by a court or, if
adjudication of guilt has been withheld, where - (i) a judge or jury has
found the alien guilty or the alien has entered a plea of guilty or nolo
contendere or has admitted sufficient facts to warrant a finding of
guilt, and (ii) the judge has ordered some form of punishment,
penalty, or restraint on the alien’s liberty to be imposed.
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48)(A). Thus, a “conviction” can be either (1) a formal
judgment of guilt, or (2) if adjudication of guilt was withheld, a sufficient finding
of guilt and the imposition of punishment or restraint on liberty. Although Mejia
argues that the second prong of § 1101(a)(48)(A) requires there to have been some
form of punishment imposed, this case is not one in which adjudication was
withheld. We will not, as counsel suggests, simply assume adjudication was
4
withheld because there was no formal adjudication of guilt. Instead, we conclude
that because the state court did not expressly withhold adjudication in the 1986
case, only the first prong of § 1101(a)(48)(A) applies here.4 See Reiter v. Sonotone
Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 339 (1979) (“Canons of construction ordinarily suggest that
terms connected by a disjunctive be given separate meanings, unless the context
dictates otherwise . . . .”). The only question here, then, is whether Mejia’s guilty
plea resulted in a formal judgment of guilt.
II.
Before 1996, the immigration laws did not provide a statutory definition of
“conviction.” To provide consistency and uniformity, the Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA) looked to whether a court had adjudicated the defendant guilty or
had entered a formal judgment of guilt. See Matter of Ozkok, 19 I. & N. Dec. 546(BIA 1988). Congress then enacted IIRIRA, which added § 1101(a)(48) and the
definition of conviction. According to the Congressional Conference Committee
Report (the Report), § 1101(a)(48) was designed to “deliberately broaden[] the
4
By contrast, Mejia’s 1989 resisting-arrest charge, which was later vacated, appears in
the record as “conviction with community service.” In another state-court record, charges for
obstruction were disposed of by “conv-comm service.” This same state-court record lists the
1986 charges with a disposition of “credit time served.” Additionally, the state-court records of
the 1985 turnstile-jumping conviction show a disposition of “finding of guilt, withhold
adjudication with 25 hours community service and $25 court cost.” After reviewing these state
court records, we are convinced that the state court did not withhold adjudication on the 1986
charges.
5
scope of the definition of ‘conviction’ beyond that adopted by the Board of
Immigration Appeals in Matter of Ozkok, 19 I&N Dec. 546 (BIA 1988).” H.R.
Rep. No. 104-828 (1996), 1996 WL 563320, at *224. As the Report further
explained,
[t]his new provision . . . clarifies Congressional intent that even in
cases where adjudication is ‘deferred,’ the original finding or
confession of guilt is sufficient to establish a ‘conviction’ for purposes
of the immigration laws. In addition, this new definition clarifies that
in cases where immigration consequences attach depending upon the
length of a term of sentence, any court-ordered sentence is considered
to be ‘actually imposed,’ including where the court has suspended the
imposition of the sentence.
Id.Importantly, the definition of conviction under § 1101(a)(48)(A) requires a
“formal judgment of guilt” instead of a formal adjudication. The Second, Third,
and Fifth Circuits have defined “formal judgment of guilt” by drawing an analogy
to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(k)(1). Singh v. Holder, 568 F.3d 525,
530 (5th Cir. 2009) (citing Puello v. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Servs.,
511 F.3d 324, 329 (2d Cir. 2007); Perez v. Elwood, 294 F.3d 552, 562 (3d Cir.
2002)). According to Rule 32(k)(1), “[i]n the judgment of conviction, the court
must set forth the plea, the jury verdict or the court’s findings, the adjudication,
and the sentence.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(k)(1). Thus, to establish a conviction for
immigration purposes, a court must accept a guilty plea or jury verdict, make an
6
adjudication, and impose a sentence. We agree with our sister circuits that this
approach makes sense and thus we adopt the same analogy.
Here, Mejia entered a guilty plea, the court made a finding of guilt, and it
imposed a sentence of time served. The remaining questions before us, then, are
(1) whether a finding of guilt qualifies as an adjudication, and (2) whether time
served qualifies as a sentence under Rule 32(k)(1).
Mejia argues that a mere finding of guilt cannot constitute an adjudication.
But we have more than a mere finding in this case. The word “adjudication”
means to resolve a dispute or decide a case.5 Black’s Law Dictionary 43 (9th Ed.
2009). Thus, to determine whether there has been an adjudication, we look to the
finality of the proceedings. See Pino v. Landon, 349 U.S. 901 (1955). For Mejia,
the evidence of the disposition is the state-court clerk’s certification showing a
“guilty plea, finding of guilt, time served.” The finding of guilt when coupled with
some form of sentence – time served – brings finality to the case and thus
establishes an adjudication. See Corey v. United States, 375 U.S. 169, 174 (1963)
(noting that “the sentence is the judgment”).
Mejia cites Griffiths v. INS, 243 F.3d 45 (1st Cir. 2001), to support his
5
We generally give words their ordinary meaning. See Pioneer Inv. Servs. Co. v.
Brunswick Assocs. Ltd. P’ship, 507 U.S. 380, 388 (1993) ((“Courts properly assume, absent
sufficient indication to the contrary, that Congress intends the words in its enactments to carry
their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.”) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
7
argument that he was not convicted of the 1986 charges. In Griffiths, the defendant
had been convicted of a firearms offense and sentenced to a six-month suspended
sentence and one year of probation. 243 F.3d at 48. After he served his term of
probation, his conviction was vacated and the state filed lesser charges against him.
When Griffiths pleaded guilty to the new charges, the state court found him guilty
and placed the charges “on file,” but it did not impose any additional punishment.
Id. Griffiths challenged his subsequent deportation order on the ground that he had
not been “convicted.” Id. at 49. The First Circuit agreed. The court noted that
under Massachusetts law, the “guilty-filed” procedure permitted the state court to
suspend the adjudicative process. The First Circuit concluded that although there
was a finding of guilt, there was no formal judgment of guilt under § 1101(a)(48)
because a finding of guilt alone was insufficient. Id. at 52-53. The court
determined that the state court withheld adjudication and, under the second
provision of § 1101(a)(48), there was no conviction because the state records did
not show whether the state-court judge had imposed some form of punishment.
Id. at 54.
Because Griffiths concerned the adjudication withheld provision, we find the
First Circuit’s reasoning inapposite. Nor do we believe it offers the support Mejia
needs. Griffiths analyzes the second provision, where adjudication was withheld.
8
But as we have explained, this analysis does not apply here because there is no
indication that the state court withheld adjudication. Moreover, Griffiths did not
exclude the possibility that a guilty-filed disposition could qualify as a conviction
if the facts showed that the state court had imposed some punishment, even if that
punishment was a prior probationary term. Rather, the court remanded to the BIA
for further factfinding on the issue of punishment. 243 F.3d at 55.
Mejia also argues that time served is not a sentence because, under Florida
law, time served is not a term of imprisonment. But whether a prior offense
qualifies as a conviction under § 1101(a)(48) is a question of federal, not state, law.
United States v. Maupin, 520 F.3d 1304, 1307 (11th Cir. 2008); see also Dickerson
v. New Banner Inst., Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 119 (1983) (“[I]n the absence of a plain
indication to the contrary . . . it is to be assumed when Congress enacts a statute
that it does not intend to make its application dependent on state law.” (citation and
quotation marks omitted)). And the purpose of enacting § 1101(a)(48)(A) was to
“creat[e] a uniform definition of conviction that is no longer dependent on the
vagaries of state law.” Resendiz-Alcarez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 383 F.3d 1262, 1269
(11th Cir. 2004).
In United States v. Anderson, 328 F.3d 1326 (11th Cir. 2003), this court held
that when a defendant pleaded nolo contendere and the court withheld
9
adjudication, a sentence of time served qualified as “punishment” under
§ 1101(a)(48). Although the question arose in the context of a sentencing-
guideline issue, the court relied on the definition of conviction in § 1101(a)(48) to
explain its holding. Id. at 1328.
Although Anderson addressed the second provision of § 1101(a)(48), we
believe Anderson’s reading of the statute is sound, and we conclude that it controls
the outcome of this case. Under federal law, time served qualifies as a sentence
under Rule 32(k)(1) and can establish a formal judgment of guilt under
§ 1101(a)(48). We again find support for this holding in the Supreme Court’s
pronouncement that “[f]inal judgment in a criminal case . . . means sentence. The
sentence is the judgment.” Corey, 375 U.S. at 174 (citation and quotation marks
omitted).
III.
In this case, the state court accepted Mejia’s plea, made a “finding of guilt,”
and imposed a sentence of time served. This satisfies § 1101(a)(48)’s definition of
a formal judgment of guilt. Accordingly, we conclude that the 1986 case resulted
in a conviction for immigration purposes. The district court properly denied the
motion for declaratory judgment.
AFFIRMED.
10