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Court rules for immigration authorities trying to deport man convicted of car theft
Posted 1/17/2007 12:13 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sided Wednesday with U.S. immigration authorities who want to deport a man convicted in a car theft case.
In a near-unanimous decision, the court said immigration law provides for removing someone convicted of aiding and abetting a theft offense when the term of imprisonment is at least one year.

The justices were considering whether conviction on a state charge of aiding and abetting a car theft rose to the level envisioned by Congress when the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed allowing for deportation of immigrants found guilty of aggravated felonies.

Luis Alexander Duenas-Alvarez, a Peruvian immigrant, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a state theft charge in California.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Duenas-Alvarez' conviction did not qualify as an aggravated felony under immigration law.

In the Supreme Court, Duenas-Alvarez's attorney argued that the charge was ambiguous on whether Duenas-Alvarez actually drove the stolen car or committed a lesser crime such as joyriding. The defense attorney argued that the California Vehicle Code provision at issue in the case created a category of crime that falls outside the generic definition of theft, and the defense attorney cited three California court cases seeking to prove his point.

"We have reviewed those cases, however, and we cannot agree that they show that California's law is somehow special," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote as the court set aside the appeals court ruling.

In order to prevail, the argument Duenas-Alvarez is making requires more than "legal imagination," Breyer wrote. "It requires a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility" that the state would apply a law to conduct that falls outside the generic definition theft.

Justice John Paul Stevens sided with his colleagues on most of the ruling, but said the court should withhold comment on the issue of California law until after the appeals court has addressed it.

The case is Gonzalez v. Duenas-Alvarez, 05-1629.