Immigration Article of the Day: Chaidez v. United States – You Can’t Go Home Again by Aram A. Gavoor & Justin M. Orlosky
Chaidez v. United States – You Can’t Go Home Again by Aram A. Gavoor (The George Washington University Law School) & Justin M. Orlosky, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2015
Abstract: This article examines a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Chaidez v. United States, in which the Court declined to apply retroactively another recent decision, Padilla v. Kentucky. To many observers, Chaidez appears to be a discrete departure from previous Sixth Amendment right to counsel jurisprudence. On a personal level, noncitizens who pled guilty to a crime without being apprised of the plea’s removal risks are now unable to seek redress under Padilla and return to their homes in the United States. This article examines relevant Sixth Amendment and retroactivity jurisprudence and proposes an explanation for the Court’s apparent about-face.
KJ