Chaidez v. United States

• Decision Date: 20 February 2013
• Docket Number: No. 11–820.,11–820.
• Parties: Roselva CHAIDEZ, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

568 U.S. 342

133 S.Ct. 1103

185 L.Ed.2d 149

Roselva CHAIDEZ, Petitioner,

v.UNITED STATES.

No. 11–820.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Nov. 1, 2012.

Decided Feb. 20, 2013.

Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, CA, for Petitioner.

Michael R. Dreeben, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Solicitor General, Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Ginger Anders, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Joel M. Gershowitz, Washington, D.C., for Respondent.

Gerardo S. Gutierrez, Chicago, IL, Claudia Valenzuela, Chuck Roth, Sarah Rose Weinman, Chicago, IL, Thomas C. Goldstein, Kevin K. Russell, Goldstein & Russell, P.C., Washington, DC, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford, CA, Valerie Marsh, Kathleen Sanderson, Angela Vigil, Baker & McKenzie LLP, Miami, FL, for Petitioner.

Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 176 L.Ed.2d 284 (2010), this Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires an attorney for a criminal defendant to provide advice about the risk of deportation arising from a guilty plea. We consider here whether that ruling applies retroactively, so that a person whose conviction became final before we decided Padilla can benefit from it. We conclude that, under the principles set out in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), Padilla does not have retroactive effect.

I

Petitioner Roselva Chaidez hails from Mexico, but became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1977. About 20 years later, she helped to defraud an automobile insurance company out of $26,000. After federal agents uncoveredthe scheme, Chaidez pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. The District Court sentenced her to four years of probation and ordered her to pay restitution. Chaidez's conviction became final in 2004.

Under federal immigration law, the offenses to which Chaidez pleaded guilty are "aggravated felonies," subjecting her to mandatory removal from this country. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(43)(M)(i), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). But according to Chaidez, her attorney never advised her of that fact, and at the time of her plea she remained ignorant of it.

Immigration officials initiated removal proceedings against Chaidez in 2009, after an application she made for citizenship alerted them to her prior conviction. To avoid removal, Chaidez sought to overturn that conviction by filing a petition for a writ of coram nobis in Federal District Court.¹ She argued that her former attorney's failure to advise her of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty constituted ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment.

While Chaidez's petition was pending, this Court decided Padilla . Our ruling vindicated Chaidez's view of the Sixth Amendment: We held that criminal defense attorneys must inform non-citizen clients of the risks of deportation arising from guilty pleas. See 559 U.S., at ––––, 130 S.Ct. at 1482. But the Government argued that Chaidez could not benefit from Padilla because it announced a "new rule" and, under Teague, such rules do not apply in collateral challenges to already-final convictions.

The District Court determined that Padilla "did not announce a new rule for Teague purposes," and therefore should apply to Chaidez's case. 730 F.Supp.2d 896, 904 (N.D.Ill.2010). It then found that Chaidez's counsel had performed deficiently under Padilla and that Chaidez suffered prejudice as a result. Accordingly, the court vacated Chaidez's conviction. See No. 03 CR 636–6, 2010 WL 3979664 (N.D.Ill., Oct. 6, 2010).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Padilla had declared a new rule and so should not apply in a challenge to a final conviction. "Before Padilla ," the Seventh Circuit reasoned, "the [Supreme] Court had never held that the Sixth Amendment requires a criminal defense attorney to provide advice about matters not directly related to [a] client's criminal prosecution," including the risks of deportation. 655 F.3d 684, 693 (2011). And state and lower federal courts had uniformly concluded that an attorney need not give "advice concerning [such a] collateral (as opposed to direct) consequenc[e] of a guilty plea." Id., at 690. According to the Seventh Circuit, Padilla 's holding was new because it ran counter to that widely accepted "distinction between direct and collateral consequences." 655 F.3d, at 691. Judge Williams dissented. Agreeing with the Third Circuit's view, she argued that Padilla "broke no new ground" because it merely applied established law about a lawyer's "duty to consult" with a client. 655 F.3d, at 695 (quoting United States v. Orocio, 645 F.3d 630, 638–639 (C.A.3 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted)).

We granted certiorari, 566 U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2101, 182 L.Ed.2d 867 (2012), to resolve a split among federal and state courts on whether Padilla applies retroactively.² Holding that it does not, we affirm the Seventh Circuit.

II

Teague makes the retroactivity of our criminal procedure decisions turn on whether they are novel. When we announce a "new rule," a person whose conviction is already final may not benefit from the decision in a habeas or similar proceeding.³ Only when we apply a settled rule may a person avail herself of the decision on collateral review. Here, Chaidez filed her coram nobis petition five years after her guilty plea became final. Her challenge therefore fails if Padilla declared a new rule.

"[A] case announces a new rule," Teague explained, "when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation" on the government. 489 U.S., at 301, 109 S.Ct. 1060."To put it differently," we continued, "a case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final." Ibid. And a holding is not so dictated, we later stated, unless it would have been "apparent to all reasonable jurists." Lambrix v. Singletary, 520 U.S. 518, 527–528, 117 S.Ct. 1517, 137 L.Ed.2d 771 (1997).

But that account has a flipside. Teague also made clear that a case does not "announce a new rule, [when] it ‘[is] merely an application of the principle that governed’ " a prior decision to a different set of facts. 489 U.S., at 307, 109 S.Ct. 1060 (quoting Yates v. Aiken, 484 U.S. 211, 217, 108 S.Ct. 534, 98 L.Ed.2d 546 (1988) ). As JUSTICE KENNEDY has explained, "[w]here the beginning point" of our analysis is a rule of "general application, a rule designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent." Wright v. West, 505 U.S. 277, 309, 112 S.Ct. 2482, 120 L.Ed.2d 225 (1992) (concurring in judgment); see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 391, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). Otherwise said, when all we do is apply a general standard to the kind of factual circumstances it was meant to address, we will rarely state a new rule for Teague purposes.

Because that is so, garden-variety applications of the test in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), for assessing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel do not produce new rules. In Strickland, we held that legal representation violates the Sixth Amendment if it falls "below an objective standard of reasonableness," as indicated by "prevailing professional norms," and the defendant suffers prejudice as a result. Id., at 687–688, 104 S.Ct. 2052. That standard, we later concluded, "provides sufficient guidance for resolving virtually all" claims of ineffective assistance, even though their particular circumstances will differ. Williams, 529 U.S., at 391, 120 S.Ct. 1495. And so we have granted relief under Strickland in diverse contexts without ever suggesting that doing so required a new rule. See, e.g., ibid. ; Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005) ; Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003).⁴ In like manner, Padilla would not have created a new rule had it only applied Strickland 's general standard to yet another factual situation—that is, had Padilla merely made clear that a lawyer who neglects to inform a client about the risk of deportation is professionally incompetent.

But Padilla did something more. Before deciding if failing to provide such advice "fell below an objective standard of reasonableness," Padilla considered a threshold question: Was advice about deportation "categorically removed" from the scope of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel because it involved only a "collateral consequence" of a conviction, rather than a component of the criminal sentence? 559 U.S., at ––––, 130 S.Ct., at 1482.⁵ In other words, prior to asking how the Strickland test applied ("Did this attorney act unreasonably?"), Padilla asked whether the Strickland test applied ("Should we even evaluate if this attorney acted unreasonably?"). And as we will describe, that preliminary question about Strickland 's ambit came to the Padilla Court unsettled—so that the Court's answer ("Yes, Strickland governs here") required a new rule.

The relevant background begins with our decision in Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985), which explicitly left open whether advice concerning a collateral consequence must satisfy Sixth Amendment requirements. Hill pleaded guilty to first-degree murder after his attorney misinformed him about his parole eligibility. In addressing his claim of ineffective assistance, we first held that the Strickland standard extends generally to the plea process. See Hill, 474 U.S., at 57, 106 S.Ct. 366. We then determined, however, that Hill had failed to allege prejudice from the lawyer's error and so could not prevail under that standard. See id., at 60, 106 S.Ct. 366. That...