Moncrieffe v. Holder
| Moncrieffe v. Holder | ||||||
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| Decided October 10, 2012 |
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Moncrieffe is eligible for the federal law exemption for possession of small amounts of marijuana. This would enable him to contest his deportation. |
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Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) |
Moncrieffe v. Holder is a landmark decision that the Supreme Court of the United States precipitated on April 23, 2013, a majority of seven to two judges.
According to her, the possession of a small amount of marijuana by a non-citizen is not a serious crime that warrants deportation.
circumstances
The plaintiff in the matter was Adrian Moncrieffe , a native of Jamaica , who legally took up permanent residence in the United States in 1984. In 2008 police arrested Moncrieffe while in possession of 1.3 grams of marijuana. Moncrieffe pleaded guilty to possession of the marijuana in a Georgia court.
In 2010, the Ministry of Homeland Security initiated deportation proceedings against Moncrieffe because he had been convicted of a felony and a crontrolled substance offense as a foreigner.
Moncrieffe did not deny possession, but argued that the act for which he was convicted was not a "serious crime" and he should therefore not be deported.
However, an immigration judge ruled that Moncrieffe could be deported because his offense was a serious crime because Moncrieffe had obtained the marijuana with the intent to trade it. Moncrieffe appealed against this decision. The Board of Immigration Appeals did not follow Moncrieffe's arguments and his deportation order was confirmed again.
Trial in the Supreme Court
The Constitutional Court therefore turned to the lower court to review its decision.
So the question that the Supreme Court contested was this:
Is conviction under state law for possession of a small amount of marijuana a serious crime regardless of whether the conduct is a federal offense?
statement
The court dismissed the prosecution's arguments that the ruling that the possession of a small amount of marijuana by a non-citizen was not a serious crime unnecessarily delayed immigration proceedings and made it easy for drug traffickers to avoid deportation.
The court found that those non-citizens convicted of trafficking in large quantities of drugs would continue to be likely to be deported, so the unavailability of mandatory deportations for any drug possession in no way means that criminals can automatically remain in the US.
The name of the case results from the names of the two parties to the litigation and the abbreviation for the legal term "versus" (German: "against") taken from the Latin , in accordance with American legal traditions .
See also
Single receipts
- ^ Ryan Campbell: Marijuana and Immigration . In: Huffington Post , June 5, 2013. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ↑ "Moncrieffe v. Holder." Oyez. Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech . In: Oyez. Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech . Accessed December 12, 2015.
Web links
- Summary and explanation of the judgment (English)