This is bold.
You get to withdraw your prior guilty plea in California if you can establish that you didn't understand at the time the prior immigration consequences of that plea. You don't have to prove ineffective assistance of counsel; it's enough that you personally didn't understand them.
Misael Padron files a declaration that says basically exactly that. He pled no contest to carjacking in a case in which he pretty definitely was going to get convicted. He faced a potential sentence of 10 years, but due to his plea, he only got three. In return for the carjacking plea, the prosecution dismissed charges of theft of a motor vehicle, vandalism, and hit and run with property damage, charges that almost certainly would have stuck if Mr. Padron had gone to trial.
The problem for Mr. Padron is that he's not a citizen, and instead got asylum from Cuba, and a conviction for carjacking results in mandatory deportation.
So six years after his conviction, in 2022, he moves to withdraw his plea. He submits declarations from himself and some other witnesses claiming that he didn't understand that he'd be deported if he pled no contest, and a declaration from an attorney that said that there were some lesser charges that he could have potentially pled guilty to that wouldn't have resulted in mandatory deportation.
The trial court denies the petition. The Court of Appeal reverses, and orders the trial court to grant the petition and vacate the convictions.
Here's the evidence on which the trial court found that Mr. Padron did, in fact, understand the immigration consequences of his plea deal (notwithstanding his contrary declaration):
(1) Mr. Padron signed and initialized a plea form, also known as a Tahl waiver, titled “Immigration Consequences" that expressly said: “I understand that if I am not a citizen of the United States, I must expect my plea of guilty or no contest will result in my deportation, exclusion from admission or reentry to the United States, and denial of naturalization and amnesty.”
(2) At the plea hearing, in open court and on the record, the prosecutor told Mr. Padron: “If you are not a citizen of the United States, your conviction in this case will result in your removal, deportation, exclusion from the U.S., and denial of naturalization."
(3) At that same plea hearing, on the record, the prosecutor asked Mr. Padron: "Have you discussed the immigration consequences with your attorney?” Padron responded that he had.
(4) At that hearing, the prosecutor also said to Mr. Padron: “[D]o you understand that the district attorney’s office will not extend an offer that has no immigration consequences?” Padron answered yes.
(5) Mr. Padron offered no testimony or declaration from his public defender, but that attorney's notes from shortly before the plea deal was accepted state that Padron “now wants . . . offer of 3 yrs. state prison (on ct. 1 (P.C. 215(a) only) . . . even though [defendant] knows (and fully advised) that ct. 1 is a ‘future’ strike and is a ‘violent’ offense.” The attorney's notes also reflect that Padron accepted this plea on May 9, 2016 and was “advised of potential imm. csqs.”
(6) There's little to know hope that had Mr. Padron elected to go to trial, he'd have avoiding being found guilty of carjacking anyway given the substantial evidence against him. Nor is there any real reason to believe that the prosecutor would have offered a plea deal that didn't involve Mr. Padron being subject to deportation. Mr. Padron was a three-striker, having served two prior felony terms in prison, and the prosecutor expressly said during the plea hearing that the officer would never give him an "offer that has no immigration consequences."
Given this evidence, you can see why the trial court might well have decided that Mr. Padron did not meet his burden of proof to establish that he was, in fact, ignorant of the immigration consequences of his plea. Or at least I can.
The Court of Appeal nonetheless reverses, holding that the above evidence isn't necessarily dispositive given Mr. Padron's limited contact with his attorney and his PTSD. I can see that. It's possible that a neutral person evaluating the evidence might decide that Mr. Padron was telling the truth and didn't understand that he'd be deported notwithstanding all this contrary evidence. (It'd be tough, I think, to come to that conclusion, but it's definitely possible.)
But it's hard to see how this would cause Mr. Padron any prejudice that would justify relief given that he'd almost certainly be convicted of a deportable offense anyway. If he went to trial, he'd have been convicted. Of that I'm virtually certain. It might have been theoretically possible for Mr. Padron to have pled guilty to a non-deportable offense -- for example, "witness tampering" -- that still contained a three year sentence. But there's zero evidence here that the prosecutor would have offered or accepted such a hypothetical deal, especially since Mr. Padron was a three-strike offender and the prosecutor stated at the plea hearing that there'd be no deal without immigration consequences. If the failure to understand immigration consequences causes absolutely no harm -- if the result would have been no different either way -- I'm unclear those set of facts should entitle a petitioner to relief.
And I don't understand how the Court of Appeal can order the granting of the petition on remand. Even if the trial court erred, it'd certainly be within the province of the trial court to decide that it simply did not believe Mr. Padron, right? Admittedly, no such finding was made by the trial court here -- it simply resolved the issue on the declarations. But that's because it thought that the documentary evidence was so clear that no such hearing was required (and the prosecutor's office thought the same thing). I would think that a remand would be required to decide whether Mr. Padron was telling the truth, at a hearing at which, perhaps, the public defender might also be called as a witness to testify to precisely what was said to Mr. Padron before he accepted his plea. It's true that all of that was unnecessary before, but that's because the trial court thought (wrongly, according to the Court of Appeal) that the evidence was not in sufficient dispute to create a genuine issue. Now that the Court of Appeal has held that it does, we can't just assume that Mr. Padron is telling the truth, can we?
It just seem bold to me to direct a granting of the petition. Maybe, despite all the contrary evidence, Mr. Padron did not, in fact, understand the immigration consequences of his plea.
But maybe he did.
