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Sixth Circuit stays deportation of accused Nazi guard

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted Tuesday a stay of deportation of accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk. The court issued the stay while it considers Demjanjuk's appeal of last Friday's order by the Board of Immigration Appeals that denied his emergency stay of deportation. Demjanjuk faces deportation to Germany, where in March a Munich district court charged him with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor concentration camp. In his motion, Demjanjuk argued that public interest weighed in favor of the stay, while the US Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to order the stay since no final order of deportation had been issued. In granting the stay, the Sixth Circuit ruled that "ecause it is our understanding that the government may remove the petitioner later today, we are compelled to rule on the motion for a stay prior to addressing the jurisdictional concerns raised by the government." Last week, a US immigration judge revoked a stay of deportation issued for Demjanjuk. The stay had been ordered after Demjanjuk filed a motion to reopen his case. The immigration judge ruled that the stay had been ordered in error and revoked it, stating the motion should have been filed with the BIA. Demjanjuk has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. In 2008, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey, ending the appeals process for his deportation order. Demjanjuk was appealing a 2005 ruling by then-US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy which ordered his deportation. Demjanjuk had previously lost his appeal to the BIA. Additionally, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied Demjanjuk's petition for review in January 2008. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court which found that he was a notorious guard from Treblinka nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible." The sentence was vacated by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, and Demjanjuk returned to the US.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 15, 2009 (boomark / email).