Edmond Morasch v. Immigration and Naturalization Service

We have here for review a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing an appeal from an order of a special inquiry officer which directed that petitioner be deported to his native Canada. Also, petitioner was denied discretionary relief when he sought to have the deportation suspended, and that action we are also asked to review.

The first question is whether the petitioner has been convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude, which permits deportation, 8 U.S.C. § 1251 (a). There is no doubt that his forgery conviction in 1951 qualifies as one. But the petitioner says the other, a conviction for petty larceny in 1932 in Portland, does not qualify. In 1932, Morasch was 18 years old. At that time the Oregon courts could have treated him as a juvenile offender, which would have permitted downgrading of the offense, but it was determined not to do so. Petitioner urges upon us Tutrone v. Shaughnessy, S.D.N.Y., 160 F.Supp. 433 . In New York at the time of the youthful Tutrone’s prosecution there was apparently no separate state juvenile procedure for the handling of offenders of Tutrone’s age. So the district court supplied it ex post facto, relying in part on the…