Legal Ethics

Va. Judge Ignores State Supreme Court Ruling After Deciding It’s Just Plain Wrong

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The Virginia Supreme Court was unanimous when it ruled last month that state judges can’t use a writ of error coram vobis to reopen the cases of immigrants who weren’t informed that they could be deported after a criminal conviction.

But Judge Dean Worcester, the chief general district judge in Loudoun County, wasn’t swayed, the Washington Post reports. He decided to ignore the state supreme court ruling, writing that it “is at odds with long-standing precedent and jurisprudence” and it “creates confusion.”

According to the newspaper, “Loudoun prosecutors were flabbergasted. Even the defendant’s attorney was shocked.”

Worcester’s Jan. 31 opinion (PDF) cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky, which held that lawyers have a Sixth Amendment obligation to warn their clients when their guilty pleas can result in deportation. Before the state supreme court ruled, Worcester had used the writ of error to reopen four convictions of defendants who weren’t advised of possible deportation.

The state supreme court said the writ could not be used in such cases because it was available only to correct errors of fact, and ineffective lawyering doesn’t qualify. Loudoun disagreed in a fifth case. Under the state supreme court ruling, “a constitutional violation will stand uncorrected,” he said. “The court will not allow this to happen.”

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