United States v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 05 January 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-17371,16-17371
• Citation: 880 F.3d 1221
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Stephanie Lois WATKINS, a.k.a. Stephanie Harrell, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

880 F.3d 1221

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Stephanie Lois WATKINS, a.k.a. Stephanie Harrell, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 16-17371

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

January 5, 2018

Jonathan Colan, Wifredo A. Ferrer, Franklin George Monsour, Jr., Lisa Tobin Rubio, Emily M. Smachetti, Michele S. Vigilance, U.S. Attorney's Office, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Jacqueline Shapiro, Jacqueline E. Shapiro, Esq., Miami, FL, Anne Margaret Hayes, Law Office of Anne M. Hayes, Cary, NC, Linda Osberg-Braun, Bernstein Osberg-Braun Caco & Solow, Miami, FL, for Defendant-Appellant

Before WILSON and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and TITUS^* , District Judge.

PER CURIAM:

Stephanie Watkins, a native and citizen of Jamaica—and until her deportation in 2003, a lawful permanent resident of the United States—appeals her conviction for reentering the country illegally following deportation. On appeal, Watkins argues that her indictment should have been dismissed because her deportation order was invalid due to a change in what crimes are considered "crimes involving moral turpitude" (CIMTs) as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). She also argues that her fingerprints should not have been collected post indictment and that the district court improperly allowed testimony from a fingerprint analyst. The government counters that Watkins cannot collaterally attack her deportation order and that there was no error relating to the fingerprint collection or testimony. After a careful review of the briefs and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.

I.

Stephanie Lois Watkins became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1992. She has lived in the United States since she arrived here with her family when she was just 10 years old. Her two children and her parents are all United States citizens who currently reside here. All of her siblings also work and reside in the United States. In 2003, she was deported back to her home country, Jamaica, for having been convicted of Florida grand theft, Fla. Stat. § 812.014(1), a CIMT. At some point, Watkins returned to the United States.

Following a March 2016 traffic stop, Watkins was arrested. The license that Watkins gave to the officer who stopped her had been flagged as suspicious. When the officer warned Watkins that she could be charged with obstruction and other charges if she was lying about her identity, she revealed her real name. After being taken to police headquarters, Watkins admitted to the officers that her license was fraudulent, that she had been deported, and that she had reentered the country illegally. She was subsequently indicted for illegally reentering the country after deportation.

Prior to a bench trial, Watkins moved to dismiss the indictment. She argued that because Florida grand theft was no longer a CIMT, her order of deportation was invalid since she had never been convicted of a CIMT, which also meant that she could not be charged with illegally reentering the United States because she should have never been deported in the first place. Before the court ruled on her motion, Watkins unsuccessfully moved the BIA to reopen her 2003 case.

In the meantime, the government moved for leave to obtain Watkins’s fingerprints in order to compare them to the fingerprints contained in her immigration documents. It argued that a fingerprint analyst would testify to show identity, namely, that Watkins was the same person who was previously removed from the United States.

After a hearing addressing both matters, the district court denied Watkins’s motion to dismiss the indictment and granted the government’s motion to obtain Watkins’s fingerprints. At the conclusion of the bench trial, Watkins was convicted and the court sentenced her to time served and one year of supervised release. She timely appealed.

II.

In a criminal context, we review collateral challenges to the validity of a deportation order de novo. United States v. Zelaya , 293 F.3d 1294, 1297 (11th Cir. 2002). We also "review questions of statutory interpretation de novo, but defer to the interpretation of the BIA if it is reasonable." Cano v. U.S. Att’y Gen. , 709 F.3d 1052, 1053 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam).

Moreover, we review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Brown , 415 F.3d 1257, 1264–65 (11th Cir. 2005). This standard grants the court substantial leeway; reversal is appropriate only when the law, facts, or procedure was incorrectly applied or when there is an otherwise clear error in judgment. Id. at 1265–66.

III.

The district court did not err in denying Watkins’s motion to dismiss her indictment. Watkins argues that she could not be charged for illegal reentry because her underlying deportation order was based on convictions for Florida grand theft, which, according to Watkins, can no longer be considered a CIMT after the Supreme Court’s issuance of Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S. 254, 133 S.Ct. 2276, 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013). For purposes of our analysis today, because it makes no difference in the outcome of Watkins’s case, we assume without deciding that Watkins is correct in asserting that a conviction for Florida grand theft no longer qualifies as a CIMT. Thus, we are left to decide the question of whether Watkins can collaterally challenge her underlying deportation order.

To collaterally attack or challenge the validity of her underlying deportation order, Watkins must show all three of the following requirements: (1) that all available administrative remedies have been exhausted; (2) that the deportation proceedings deprived her of the opportunity for judicial review; and (3) that the deportation proceedings were fundamentally unfair. 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d). We focus on Watkins’s inability to show that she was denied judicial review in explaining why her claim fails.

Two Supreme Court cases establish the contours of this requirement that a litigant demonstrate that she did not have the opportunity for judicial review: Lewis v. United States , 445 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 915, 63 L.Ed.2d 198 (1980), and United States v. Mendoza-Lopez , 481 U.S. 828, 107 S.Ct. 2148, 95 L.Ed.2d 772 (1987). We begin with Lewis . In that case, Lewis was indicted for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of federal law. Lewis , 445 U.S. at 57, 100 S.Ct. 915. Lewis sought to defend himself on the basis that his underlying state conviction was invalid because he had not been represented by counsel in the proceedings that led to that conviction. Id. at 57-58, 100 S.Ct. 915. Based on the language of the federal law, the Supreme Court concluded that "one’s status as a convicted felon should cease only when the conviction upon which that status depends has been vacated." Id. at 61, 100 S.Ct. 915. So Lewis could not collaterally challenge his state-court conviction in the context of his federal-court proceedings. Id. at 61-65, 100 S.Ct. 915. Critical to the Court’s conclusion was its observation that "a convicted felon is not without relief." Id. at 64, 100 S.Ct. 915. As the Court explained, before obtaining a firearm, a convicted felon could absolve himself of his convicted status for purposes of the federal statute by obtaining a qualifying pardon or the Secretary of the Treasury’s consent, or by challenging his prior conviction in state court. Id.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court decided Mendoza-Lopez , the case that resulted in the amendment of § 1326 to include § 1326(d) ’s provisions for collaterally attacking an underlying conviction. In Mendoza-Lopez , the Court considered whether an undocumented immigrant who is prosecuted under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 for illegal entry after deportation may, in the criminal proceeding, challenge the validity of the underlying deportation order. Mendoza-Lopez , 481 U.S. at 830, 107 S.Ct. 2148. In the criminal proceeding, the district court had concluded that the petitioners had not made knowing and intelligent waivers of their rights to apply for suspension of deportation or their rights to appeal because their questions about these issues had not sufficiently been answered during the deportation proceedings. Id. at 832, 107 S.Ct. 2148. The petitioners sought to set aside their deportation orders on that basis. In considering what to do, the Supreme Court first acknowledged, like the Lewis Court had with respect to the federal statute at issue there, that the language and legislative history of § 1326 do not supply a basis for concluding that Congress intended in the § 1326 prosecution to allow challenges to the validity of the underlying deportation. Id. at 834-37, 107 S.Ct. 2148.

Nevertheless, the Court concluded that due-process considerations require that the underlying deportation be subject to "meaningful review" before it may be used as a basis for proving an element of a § 1326 prosecution. Id. at 837-38, 107 S.Ct. 2148. Further defining what it meant by "meaningful review," the Supreme Court explained, "This principle means at the very least that where the defects in an administrative proceeding foreclose judicial review of that proceeding, an alternative means of obtaining judicial review must be made available before the administrative order may be used to establish conclusively an element of a criminal offense." Id. at 838, 107 S.Ct. 2148 (emphasis added). The Court continued, "[A] collateral challenge to the use of a deportation proceeding as an element of a criminal offense must be permitted where the deportation proceeding effectively eliminates the right of the [undocumented immigrant] to obtain judicial review." Id. at 839, 107 S.Ct. 2148 (emphasis added). And "[e]ven with this safeguard," the Supreme Court expressed concern over the use of an administrative proceeding to establish an element of a criminal offense. Id. at 838, n.15, 107 S.Ct. 2148.

The main feature distinguishing Mendoza-Lopez from Lewis is the lack in Mendoza-Lopez of a meaningful opportunity for ...