JUSTICES EASE DEPORTATION RULE IN MINOR DRUG CASES

WASHINGTON -- Immigrants who are legally in the United States need
not be automatically deported for minor drug offenses, the Supreme
Court ruled Monday in a unanimous decision.

Lower courts had said that Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo, a permanent
resident of the United States who had lived here since 1983, when he
was 5, was subject to mandatory deportation for a second drug
offense, this one involving possession of single tablet of a prescription drug.

The question in the case was whether that second offense amounted to
an "aggravated felony." If it did, the government had no choice but
to deport him under the immigration laws. If it did not, the attorney
general had the discretion to show leniency.

In 2004, Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was sentenced by a Texas state court
judge to 20 days in jail for possession of less than two ounces of
marijuana. The next year, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for
having a single tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, without a prescription.

Those were both misdemeanors under state law. But federal authorities
argued that a second drug offense counted as an aggravated felony
under federal law, making Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo ineligible for
discretionary relief from deportation.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for seven justices, said the
interactions of the various state and federal laws in the case
required analysis of a "maze of statutory cross-references" and a
2006 decision, Lopez v. Gonzales, that rooted the definition of
"aggravated felony" in federal law even when state offenses were involved.

At bottom, Justice Stevens wrote, "a 10-day sentence for the
unauthorized possession of a trivial amount of a prescription drug"
is at odds with the ordinary meaning of "aggravated felony," even if
federal prosecutors could, in theory, have sought a two-year sentence
in federal court for the second drug offense.

"Carachuri-Rosendo, and others in his position, may now seek
cancellation of removal and thereby avoid the harsh consequence of
mandatory removal," Justice Stevens wrote. But "any relief he may
obtain depends upon the discretion of the attorney general."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in separate
concurrences, voted with the majority but declined to adopt its
reasoning in the case, Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, No. 09-60.

Capital Punishment

A death-row inmate in Florida was given a second chance to argue that
an otherwise strict one-year filing deadline should not apply to him,
in light of his lawyer's inaccessibility and incompetence. The vote was 7 to 2.

The case concerned an unusually diligent and savvy inmate, Albert
Holland, and an uncommunicative lawyer, Bradley Collins, who was
appointed to handle Mr. Holland's habeas corpus challenges to his
murder conviction and death sentence.

Mr. Holland complained to the Florida Supreme Court in June 2004 of
"a complete breakdown in communications," saying he had not seen or
spoken to his lawyer in 14 months and felt abandoned. He asked for a
new lawyer.

Florida prosecutors responded that Mr. Holland was not allowed to
communicate with the court directly because he was represented by
counsel, an argument accepted by the court. In a concurrence on
Monday, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called that ruling perverse.

Over the years, Mr. Holland peppered his lawyer with letters
reminding him of a tight filing deadline in federal court that would
follow a decision by the State Supreme Court. He wrote to his lawyer
to explain the relevant procedures. ("Holland was right about the
law," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in Monday's majority decision.)

Nonetheless, Mr. Collins neither informed his client when the state
court ruled against him nor filed the required papers in time to seek
review in federal court.

When Mr. Holland learned independently of the state court decision in
the prison library, he immediately filed his own paperwork, but it
was too late.

In a rare response to a letter from Mr. Holland, Mr. Collins said
that the relevant deadlines had passed by the time he was appointed
to the case. ("Collins was wrong about the law," Justice Breyer wrote.)

The question in the case was whether Mr. Collins's conduct was
sufficient to suspend a deadline in a 1996 law limiting death penalty
litigation. The court did not decide that question, but it said the
appeals court had used too narrow a standard in saying that a
lawyer's negligence was never enough.

Justice Breyer's opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts
Jr. and Justices Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and
Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Alito largely agreed but said the majority had not laid down
a clear standard of its own. He suggested that the salient facts in
the case, Holland v. Florida, No. 09-5327, were Mr. Collins's
apparent abandonment of his client and prosecutors' insistence that
only Mr. Collins could speak for Mr. Holland.

Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented. He said the
court was powerless under the Constitution to rewrite the law.

"The court's impulse to intervene when a litigant's lawyer has made
mistakes is understandable; the temptation to tinker with the
technical rules to achieve what appears a just result is often
strong, especially when the client faces a capital sentence," Justice
Scalia said. But he added that "unelected judges" must resist such impulses.

California Prisons

The court agreed to hear arguments over whether a special panel of
federal judges in California was authorized to order the release of
40,000 inmates from state prisons to relieve overcrowding. The case
is Schwarzenegger v. Plata, No. 09-1233.

Rendition

The court declined to hear an appeal from Maher Arar, a Canadian who
says American officials sent him to Syria to be tortured. The federal
appeals court in New York ruled last year that Mr. Arar could not sue
for damages because Congress had not authorized such suits.

The Supreme Court gave no reasons for its decision, and there were no
noted dissents. Justice Sotomayor, who had participated in the
appeals court argument, disqualified herself from the case, Arar v.
Ashcroft, No. 09-923.