A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanour is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law to describe an offense that resulted in the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods, to which additional punishments including capital punishment could be added; other crimes were called misdemeanors. Following conviction of a felony in a court of law, a person may be described as a felon or a convicted felon.
A misdemeanor is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences. Typically, misdemeanors are punished with monetary fines or community service.
Drunk driving is the act of operating a motor vehicle with the operator's ability to do so impaired as a result of alcohol consumption, or with a blood alcohol level in excess of the legal limit. For drivers 21 years or older, driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or higher is illegal. For drivers under 21 years old, the legal limit is lower, with state limits ranging from 0.00 to 0.02. Lower BAC limits apply when operating boats, airplanes, or commercial vehicles. Among other names, the criminal offense of drunk driving may be called driving under the influence (DUI), driving while intoxicated or impaired (DWI), operating [a] vehicle under the influence of alcohol (OVI), or operating while impaired (OWI).
Vehicular homicide is a crime that involves the death of a person other than the driver as a result of either criminally negligent or murderous operation of a motor vehicle.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code, governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, various statutes governed immigration law but were not organized within one body of text. According to its own text, the Act is officially entitled as just the Immigration and Nationality Act, but it is frequently specified with 1952 at the end in order to differentiate it from the 1965 law.
An Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility is an application for legal entry to the United States made by an individual who is otherwise inadmissible on one or more grounds. The application is submitted to the consular office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office or immigration court considering the immigrant visa or adjustment of status application.
A K-1 visa is a visa issued to the fiancé or fiancée of a United States citizen to enter the United States. A K-1 visa requires a foreigner to marry his or her U.S. citizen petitioner within 90 days of entry, or depart the United States. Once the couple marries, the foreign citizen can adjust status to become a lawful permanent resident of the United States. Although a K-1 visa is legally classified as a non-immigrant visa, it usually leads to important immigration benefits and is therefore often processed by the Immigrant Visa section of United States embassies and consulates worldwide.
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 element or otherwise allows a conviction for merely negligent conduct.
Lopez v. Gonzales, 549 U.S. 47 (2006), held that an "aggravated felony" includes only conduct punishable as a felony under the federal Controlled Substances Act, regardless of whether state law classifies such conduct as a felony or a misdemeanor. Under federal law, there are two main consequences of having a prior conviction for an "aggravated felony." One is that, if the convicted person is an alien, he will be deported. The other is that, with respect to certain federal crimes, a prior conviction for an aggravated felony provides a sentencing enhancement. In this case, Lopez had been convicted of conduct that was a felony under South Dakota law but was a misdemeanor under federal law. Accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this conviction could not serve as a basis for deporting him.
The term aggravated felony was used in the United States immigration law to refer to a broad category of criminal offenses that carry certain severe consequences for aliens seeking asylum, legal permanent resident status, citizenship, or avoidance of deportation proceedings. Anyone convicted of an aggravated felony and removed from the United States "must remain outside of the United States for twenty consecutive years from the deportation date before he or she is eligible to re-enter the United States." The supreme court ruled 5-4 in Sessions v. Dimaya that the residual clause was unconstitutionally vague limiting the term.
The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005, or IMBRA, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1375a(d), is a United States federal statute that requires background checks for all marriage visa sponsors and limits serial visa applications. Additionally, the law requires background checks for US citizens using marriage brokerage services focused primarily on providing dating services between US citizens or residents and foreign nationals for a fee. The impetus for its introduction were the Susanna Blackwell case in 1995 and the Anastasia King case in 2000, in which foreign women had been abused and murdered by men who had used a K-1 fiancée visa issued by the U.S. State Department to bring them to the United States. In the King case, the husband had physically abused a previous foreign bride before murdering Anastasia. King had met Anastasia through his own advertisement in a Moscow newspaper. In the Blackwell case, the husband had a clean record, therefore IMBRA would not have prevented her murder. It was intended to stop abuse of mail order brides by prospective husbands with criminal histories. IMBRA met with opposition from international dating companies when it was first introduced. Some industry executives claim the industry has grown to appreciate it to ensure the safety of its female clients.
Good moral character is an ideal state of a person's beliefs and values that is considered most beneficial to society.
A deferred adjudication, also known in some jurisdictions as an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal (ACOD), probation before judgment (PBJ), or deferred entry of judgment (DEJ), is a form of plea deal available in various jurisdictions, where a defendant pleads "guilty" or "no contest" to criminal charges in exchange for meeting certain requirements laid out by the court within an allotted period of time also ordered by the court. Upon completion of the requirements, which may include probation, treatment, community service, some form of community supervision, or some other diversion program, the defendant may avoid a formal conviction on their record or have their case dismissed. In some cases, an order of non-disclosure can be obtained, and sometimes a record can be expunged.
Judulang v. Holder, 565 U.S. 42 (2011), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving deportation law and procedure. The case involved a rule adopted by the Board of Immigration Appeals for determining the eligibility of certain long-term resident aliens, when they are facing deportation because of a prior criminal conviction, to apply to the Attorney General for relief. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Elena Kagan, the Court invalidated the BIA's "comparable-grounds rule" as arbitrary and capricious, holding that it had no rational relation to the merits of an alien's claim for remaining in the United States, nor to the policy and purposes of the immigration laws.
The Travel Act or International Travel Act of 1961, 18 U.S.C. § 1952, is a Federal criminal statute which forbids the use of the U.S. mail, or interstate or foreign travel, for the purpose of engaging in certain specified criminal acts.
The U visa is a United States nonimmigrant visa which is set aside for victims of crimes who have suffered substantial mental or physical abuse while in the U.S. and who are willing to assist law enforcement and government officials in the investigation or prosecution of the criminal activity. It permits such victims to enter or remain in the US when they might not otherwise be able to do so. An advantage that comes along with the acceptance of a U-visa is the individual will have deportation protection which is important when they are collaborating with law enforcement.
Luna Torres v. Lynch, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided the interpretation of section 1101(a)(43) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which includes "aggravated felony" as a possible reason for deporting a non-citizen. The INA specifies certain offenses described in the federal criminal code as qualifying as an aggravated felony. The question before the court was if the plaintiff Jorge Luna Torres, who had been convicted under a state arson statute mostly identical to the federal statute but lacking an interstate or foreign commerce element in the federal law, fell under this definition of aggravated felony. The Court affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit original decision: the difference was merely "jurisdictional", and Torres still qualified for the accelerated deportation process described under the INA.
Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 8–0 that in the context of statutory rape offenses that criminalize sexual intercourse based solely on the ages of the participants, the generic federal definition of "sexual abuse of a minor" requires the age of the victim to be less than 16. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the majority opinion.
Shular v. United States, 589 U.S. ___ (2020), is an opinion of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that, under the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, the definition of “serious drug offense” only requires that the state offense involve the conduct specified in the statute. Unlike other provisions of the ACCA, it does not require that state courts develop “generic” version of a crime, which describe the elements of the offense as they are commonly understood, and then compare the crime being charged to that generic version to determine whether the crime qualifies under the ACCA for purposes of penalty enhancement. The decision states that offenses defined under the ACCA are "unlikely names for generic offenses," and are therefore unambiguous. This renders the rule of lenity inapplicable.
Pereida v. Wilkinson, 592 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) an alien seeking to cancel a lawful removal order bears the burden of showing that he has not been convicted of a disqualifying offense. An alien has not carried that burden when the record shows he has been convicted under a statute limiting multiple offenses, some of which are disqualifying, and the record is ambiguous as to which crime formed the basis of his conviction.
