Erwin Estuardo Garcia-Lopez v. John Ashcroft, Attorney General

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a wobbler offense qualified for the petty offense exception when the State court’s post-probation actions made the offense a misdemeanor
• holding that BIA was bound by post-conviction state court order classifying conviction as a misdemeanor rather than a felony
• holding that a wobbler qualified for the petty offense exception to deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A) (ii)(II) because the state court had declared it a misdemeanor under section 17(b)(3)
• explaining that because the BIA does not “administer! ] or ha[ve] any particular expertise in interpreting [state criminal statutes], no deference is accorded to the BIA’s interpretation”
• holding with regard to a “wobbler” offense that “[bjecause the offense of which he was convicted was a misdemeanor, Garcia-Lopez’s maximum possible penalty under California law was less than six months”
• explaining that because the BIA does not “administer[ ] or ha[ve] any particu- lar expertise in interpreting [state criminal statutes], no defer- ence is accorded to the BIA’s interpretation”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).