Deportation, Effective Counsel, and Collateral Sanctions: Padilla v. Kentucky (2010)

Abstract

In its March 31, 2010 PadiUa v. Kentucky decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that defense counsel's failure to advise a noncitizen client of the deportation conse quences of a conviction constituted ineffective counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. Hailed by advocates as "momentous" (Immigrant Defense Project, 2010) and a "Gideon decision for immigrants" (Rojas, 2010), the PadiUa ruling has been greeted by supporters and detractors alike as a landmark in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. Immigration statistics illustrate the decision's importance: from 2000 to 2009, more than 920,000 people were deported from the U.S. because of their crimi nal status (Office of Immigration Statistics, 2010:97-103), Beyond the immigration law context, PadiUa will affect the provision of indigent defense and influence the work of prosecutors, defense counsel, and judges negotiating and accepting plea deals in state and federal courts. PadiUa's logic may prove to have even broader implications, as it could undercut the longstanding but increasingly controversial distinction between "direct" and "collateral" consequences of criminal convictions in the United States. Drugs, a Plea, and a Deportation Order: PadiUa Arrives at the Court. Jos? PadiUa lived in California and worked as a licensed truck driver. Born in Honduras, Padilla had been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for more than forty years. In September of 2001, the tractor-trailer truck Padilla was driving was searched in Kentucky and found to contain a large amount of marijuana. Padilla accepted a deal under which he would plead guilty to some charges and face a total sentence of ten years, with the latter five served as probation. PadiUa's attorney had told him he did not need to worry about deportation "since he had been in the country so long." This was badly wrong: virtually every drug infrac tion is a deportable offense under federal law, and deportation is now rnandatory for trafficking crimes. Padilla sought relief, arguing that his lawyer had provided ineffec tive counsel and that he would have insisted on going to trial had he known that deportation would follow a conviction. A Kentucky circuit court denied PadiUa's motion, but an appeals court remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing. The Kentucky Supreme Court reversed the appeals court, declaring that since "collateral consequences are outside the scope of the guarantee of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel," Padilla was not entitled to post-conviction relief