Law Clinic Took on Issue Ahead of its Time
More than eight years ago, Teri Canfield-Eye, a Clinic intern at the time, argued a complex and ground breaking legal matter to the Kansas Supreme Court on behalf of a Law Clinic client. The matter addressed an issue at the intersection of criminal procedure and immigration law. (Read news story from 2002.) In its decision on the case, State v. Muriithi, 273 Kan. 952 (2002), the Court ruled against the Clinic client, holding that defense counsel's failure to advise a criminal defendant that he could be deported following a plea of no contest to domestic battery did not amount to ineffective assistance of counsel. The court reasoned that advice on deportation was not necessary because deportation is a collateral consequence of a criminal conviction.
Muriithi had broad reaching consequences. Since its issuance, it has been cited in over 120 reported cases and over 20 secondary sources. It was also referenced in an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Padilla v. Kentucky. Addressing the very issue central to Muriithi, the United States Supreme Court announced its ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky, (No. 08-651) on March 31, 2010. The U.S. Supreme Court resolved the issue differently than the Kansas Supreme Court, holding that deportation is intimately related to criminal proceedings, making it difficult to classify as either a direct or collateral matter. As such, the Court concluded that "when the deportation consequence is truly clear...the duty [of defense counsel] to give correct advice is equally clear." Id. at p. 12.
Canfield-Eye had argued more than eight years ago that the severity and certainty of deportation made it unlike other collateral consequences of criminal convictions, urging the Kansas high court to require attorneys to advise defendants of deportation consequences. At the time of the argument, the memory of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks was still fresh in everyone's minds. While the position advocated by Canfield-Eye (and her Clinic colleagues on the brief, Keith Whiteford and Rebecca Hestand) was not successful in 2002, the essence of that position carried the day in our nation's high court in 2010. Although the Clinic's position was ahead of its time, it is now the law of the land.
As a footnote to this piece of Clinic history, even though Canfield-Eye didn't prevail in the argument to the Kansas Supreme Court, her advocacy clearly impressed someone. Upon passing the bar, Canfield-Eye was hired as a research attorney with the Kansas high court.
