''Leocal v. Ashcroft'', 543 U.S. 1 (2004), held that aliens may not be deported after being convicted of DUI if the DUI statute that defines the offense does not contain a ''

mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...

'' element or otherwise allows a conviction for merely negligent conduct.

Facts

Josue Leocal is a citizen of

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

who has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States since 1987. In 2000, he was convicted in Florida of

driving under the influence Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...

(DUI). Proceedings were then instituted to deport Leocal, and an immigration judge concluded that Leocal's DUI conviction constituted a "crime of violence" and hence an aggravated felony under the

Immigration and Nationality Act The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act may refer to one of several acts including: * Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 * Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 * Immigration Act of 1990 See also * List of United States immigration legisla ...

. Because of his conviction for an aggravated felony, Leocal was ordered deported in October 2001. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed this decision, and Leocal sought review in the Eleventh Circuit. In an unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the DUI conviction was an "aggravated felony," and hence it had no jurisdiction to review the lawfulness of the deportation order. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case.

Opinion of the Court

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, any alien convicted of an aggravated felony is deportable and may be deported upon an order of the Attorney General. An "aggravated felony" includes any crime classified under federal law as a "crime of violence." And a "crime of violence," in turn, is any crime that In order to determine whether Leocal's DUI conviction qualified as a "crime of violence," the Court examined the elements of the statutory definition of the crime rather than the particular facts. Under Florida law, it is a third-degree felony for any person to operate a vehicle under the influence and, "by reason of such operation, caus ... rious bodily injury to another." This statute has no ''

'' element—it does not require the defendant to have any particular level of intent to commit the crime. In Florida, DUI does not entail the attempted or threatened use of physical force; if DUI is to qualify as a crime of violence, it must so qualify because it involves the ''use'' of physical force. The "use" of physical force "most naturally suggests a higher degree of intent than negligent or merely accidental conduct." Likewise, DUI does not entail a "substantial risk" that physical force will be used. Furthermore, the fact that in another subsection of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Congress expressly distinguished between DUI crimes and "crimes of violence" bolstered the Court's conclusion that Florida's DUI statute was not a "crime of violence" because it did not require proof of any particular mental state, and thus criminalized merely negligent conduct.

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Leocal v. Ashcroft'', {{ussc, 543, 1, 2004, el=no , cornell =https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-583.ZO.html , courtlistener = , findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/543/1.html , googlescholar = , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/543/1/ , loc = , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/03-583
Transcript of the oral argument

Brief of Leocal as Petitioner

Brief of the Government as Respondent

Advice on applying ''Leocal''
from the

American Immigration Law Foundation The American Immigration Council is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and advocacy group Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various form ...

United States Supreme Court cases United States immigration and naturalization case law 2004 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court Alcohol law in the United States Haiti–United States relations