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Immigrant?s Options when Facing Deportation Narrowed

By Walin & Klarich

The California Supreme Court ruled this month that immigrants who are facing deportation may no longer rely on two common post-conviction challenges. The court ruled in two separate cases that a writ of habeas corpus, or writ of error coram nobis, would no longer be available to a defendant once they had served a sentence and were no longer on parole or probation. The court?s ruling means that once the defendant is no longer ?in custody,? it is too late for the state courts to entertain either writ. In most states, immigrants have available to them procedures to clean their criminal record of deportable offenses. California however has no such procedure. The court ruled in a unanimous decision that only defendants who are still in state custody may use writs of habeas corpus...continue to full post

Full post as published by Southern California Criminal Defense Blog on April 06, 2009 (boomark / email).