Statute of Limitations: Pay attention!

The Statute of Limitations thing is gonna getcha every time. I read the print off the pages in my Maryland Rules of Court. That book must be read front to back, including the annotations below the Rule. I saved one filing by doing that. It was a combination Immigration/Criminal appeal. This was another one of those cases that we shared with a fellow attorney.

Of course, by the time we were retained, the 30 days "Appeal as of Right" had passed. The Alien had pled guilty, and was serving his sentence. However, Dept. of Homeland Security (formerly INS) had sent him a notice that he would be picked up and held in detention when he was released. That's where we came in. I read every single page in the file, and discovered that he could petition the Judge to modify his sentence, and he could make a Motion for a New Trial. Both of these had a 90 day limit.

Well, here it was, the 90 days was about to run out on May 29. Lucky for us, that was Memorial Day weekend. The Court rules provide that when the day of the event falls on a Holiday, or any other day the court is closed, then the event due date becomes the following day. So we were able to scramble over the weekend; I drafted the Motion and an accompanying brief, and we filed it Tuesday morning.

Viola! We made it within the 90 days SOL in the Criminal Court. Then we had to worry about the detention hearing in the Immigration Court. I was able to scramble a Memorandum of Law for the Immigration Judge, asking that she continue his detention hearing until after the outcome of the Motion for New Trial in the Criminal Court. She granted that motion! We argued that his conviction was not "final" if there was a possibility that the Criminal Court could grant our Motion for New Trial. Pretty nifty.

Well, long story short: we lost our New Trial motion in the Criminal Court, making his conviction "final" for Immigration purposes. Thus, the Immigration Judge finally gave him deportation orders. As we often say, what a learning experience. The Alien's family plans to appeal the Deportation Order, but we declined to participate.

There is good news to the story on that case. We were able to place on the record an argument to change the law in Maryland. We want every non-citizen who is involved in the criminal system to have the right to an Immigration Attorney, as well as the right to a Criminal Defense Attorney. The Immigration Attorney would be there to explain to the non-citizen the Immigration Consequences of a guilty plea. And it would relieve every Criminal Defense Attorney of the obligation to learn the very complex Immigration Law.