Summary
United States v. Chaidez: U.S. Supreme Court case involving the use of a new rule to overturn convictions entered years ago. Roselva Chaidez was convicted of fraud for her part in an insurance scam, claiming injuries in an accident that never happened. Immigration law requires aliens who commit frauds over $10,000 to be deported. Several years later, she falsely claimed on a naturalization petition that she had never been convicted of a crime, and the government began deportation proceedings. She now claims her conviction should be overturned because her criminal defense lawyer did not advise her of the immigration consequences of a plea, even though that was not a ground for overturning a plea at the time and even though she made no claim she did not commit the offense. In 2010, the Supreme Court created a new rule of law allowing guilty pleas to be attacked on this basis. The case threatens the landmark precedent of Teague v. Lane, won by CJLF in 1989. That case held that new rules of procedure cannot be used to go back and overturn convictions that are already final. Without this rule, many thousands of final convictions would be subject to overturning every time the Supreme Court alters the rules of procedure, as it often does. CJLF entered the case to argue that the rule against retroactivity strikes the correct balance and should be preserved. The high court agreed and left the judgment intact. [CJLF brief in PDF.]
