In October 2018, Oscar Aquino, a legal permanent resident from the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty to assault and battery on a family or household member.
According to court documents, Oscar and his girlfriend got into a heated argument over his use of her car. She claims that during the argument Oscar slapped her face multiple times, shoved her to the ground, and threatened to kill her. She took photos of her injuries to document the severity of the alleged abuse.
The woman reported the incident to police. They arrested Oscar and a district court judge detained him following a 58A dangerousness hearing.
After sitting in jail for 143 day, Oscar decided to plead guilty to the charge and presumably get released.
Prior to tendering the plea, Oscar spoke with his attorney. According to the attorney, Oscar was unconcerned about immigration consequences at the time of the plea. (His top priority was getting out of jail.) Additionally, Oscar told the attorney that he (Oscar) had already spoken with an immigration lawyer.
When Oscar tendered the plea to the judge, she advised him that pleading guilty could result in deportation from the United States. Nevertheless, Oscar went forward with the plea.
A year later, Oscar filed a motion to withdraw his plea. In his motion Oscar claimed that his trial lawyer did not adequately inform him about the immigration consequences of the plea. Moreover, Oscar argued that his lawyer’s failings resulted in an unfair prejudice against him.
The motion judge agreed that Oscar’s attorney did not properly advise him of deportation risks: “Advising a client to consult with an immigration attorney when deportation is presumptively mandatory is insufficient.”
However, the motion judge concluded that there were not prejudicial consequences as a result of the lawyer’s mistake. Accordingly, the judge denied Oscar’s motion.
Oscar appealed and the Appeals Court affirmed the decision. Regarding “prejudice” the justices wrote,
To establish prejudice, a defendant must show that, but for counsel’s defective advice, the defendant would have not pleaded guilty and that such a decision would have been rational under the circumstances.
Both the motion judge and the Appeals Court held that the case against Oscar was too strong to suppose that he was prejudiced by his lawyer’s error. The alleged victim was ready and willing to testify against Oscar. The police had photographs corroborating the woman’s story. And the police also claimed to have voicemails of Oscar threatening to kill the woman.
Based on the foregoing, the Appeals Court concluded that it would not “have been rational under the circumstances” for Oscar to proceed to trial.
The full opinion is attached below.