Wei Cong Mei v. Ashcroft’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

27 federal appellate · 1 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “it was not deploying any insights that it might have obtained from adjudicating immigration cases. It was”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Martinez-Cedillo v. Sessions · Galeana-Mendoza v. Gonzales

2. “corresponds, as noted in Beltran-Tirado v. INS, 213 F.3d 1179 , 1184 (9th Cir. 2000), and Orlando v. Robinson, 262 F.2d 850 , 851 (7th Cir. 1959), to the distinction between crimes that are ma-lum in se and crimes that are malum prohibitum. The former refer to crimes that because they violate the society’s basic moral norms are known by everyone to be wrongful, the latter to crimes that are not intuitively known to be wrongful. United States v. Urfer, 287 F.3d 663 , 666 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Beavers, 206 F.3d 706 , 710 (6th Cir. 2000) (“the lack of intuitive wrongfulness is the hallmark of all laws that are malum prohibitum”). In application, however, the distinction turns out to be paper thin. In South Carolina, for example, simple possession of cocaine is classified as a crime involving moral turpitude, State v. Major, 301 S.C. 181 , 391 S.E.2d 235 , 237 (1990), but simple possession of marijuana is not. State v. Harvey, 275 S.C. 225 , 268 S.E.2d 587 , 588 (1980). An alien convicted of making false statements on an employment application and using a fake Social Security number was held in Beltran-Tirado v. INS, supra, not to have committed a crime involving moral turpitude, but the crime of making false statements in a driver’s license application was held in Zaitona v. INS, 9 F.3d 432 (6th Cir. 1993), to involve moral turpitude. The holdings of the Board of Immigration Appeals are consistent with regard to some crimes but “there are a number of miscellaneous ea”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Arias v. Lynch

3. “Since Congress did not define 'crime involving moral turpitude' when it inserted the term in the immigration statute, and the term had no settled meaning at the time (and has none still), it is reasonable to suppose ala Chevron that Congress contemplated that the agency charged with administering the statute would define the term, and specifically would tailor the definition to the policies embodied in the immigration statutes. The Board of Immigration Appeals has done neither.... [T]he Board hasn't done anything to particularize the meaning of 'crime involving moral turpitude'... The Board should not be blamed too harshly [for widely varying results in what is considered a CIMT]; courts have equally failed to impart a clear meaning to 'moral turpitude.' Time has only confirmed Justice Jackson's powerful dissent in the De George case, in which he called 'moral turpitude' an 'undefined and undefinable standard.' The term may well have outlived its usefulness.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Islas-Veloz v. Whitaker