James Corpuz v. Eric H. Holder Jr.

I. Background

Corpuz is a Philippine citizen. He entered the United States on an immigrant visa in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1983. He was then 16 years old. He and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he completed two years of college with a major in biochemistry. CORPUZ v. HOLDER 10421 Suffering from mental illness, Corpuz killed his mother on Mother’s Day, May 14, 1989, by striking her with a hammer. He was arrested and initially held in police custody in the psy- chiatric unit of the Clark County Detention Center. On July 14, 1989, he was transferred to Lake’s Crossing Center (“Lake’s Crossing”), a secure psychiatric facility in Nevada, pending a determination of his competence to stand trial. He was civilly confined at Lake’s Crossing for slightly over a year. Corpuz was found incompetent to stand trial in Decem- ber 1989. The following summer, he was found competent. He was released from Lake’s Crossing on August 10, 1990, and transferred back to law enforcement custody.

On September 7, 1990, Corpuz was charged in Nevada state court with first-degree murder. On January 18, 1991, an amended information reduced the charge to voluntary man- slaughter.…

Opinion by Judge WILLIAM A. FLETCHER; Dissent by Judge KELINFELD.

OPINION

Petitioner James Baria Corpuz petitions for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) decision declaring him ineligible for relief under former § 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) on the ground that he had served a “term of imprisonment” of over five years for conviction of an aggravated felony. Corpuz contends that the BIA improperly included in his “term of imprisonment” the entire period that he spent in psychiatric pre-trial civil confinement pending a determination of his competence to stand trial. We grant Corpuz’s petition and remand for further proceedings.

*809 I. Background

Corpuz is a Philippine citizen. He entered the United States on an immigrant visa in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1983. He was then 16 years old. He and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he completed two years of college with a major in biochemistry.

Suffering from mental illness, Corpuz killed his mother on Mother’s Day, May 14, 1989, by striking her with a hammer. He was arrested and initially held in police custody in the psychiatric unit of the Clark County Detention Center. On July 14,…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent.

The majority confuses the unknown with the unknowable. It coins the new term “constructive good time,” under which immigration judges are now required to quantify the unknowable: how much good *818 time a prisoner would have received, had he been in prison instead of where he actually was. This calculation is impossible — not difficult, impossible.

Corpuz concluded a Mother’s Day quarrel with his mother by beating her head in with a hammer. After a lengthy period in jail, and then in a psychiatric facility to determine his competency to stand trial, he was found competent despite his schizophrenia. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter pursuant to a plea bargain. The sentencing judge credited the preconviction psychiatric confinement against Corpuz’s prison sentence. Corpuz was free three and a half years after he pleaded guilty, but more than five years after his confinement began. Under the eligibility statute at issue, a petitioner is ineligible for relief from removal if he served “a term of imprisonment of at least 5 years.” 1 Corpuz did.

I agree with the majority that when a defendant receives credit against a criminal sentence…