Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2017

Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions

581 U.S. 385 | 137 S. Ct. 1562 | 198 L. Ed. 2d 22 | 2017 U.S. LEXIS 3551 | 26 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 607 | 85 U.S.L.W. 4296

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Takeaway

In short, an age-only statutory rape conviction is not categorically “sexual abuse of a minor” under the INA if the statute also covers consensual intercourse with 16- or 17-year-olds.

Background

Juan Esquivel-Quintana, a lawful permanent resident, pleaded no contest to a California offense prohibiting sexual intercourse with a person under 18 who is more than three years younger than the perpetrator. The Department of Homeland Security sought to remove him, arguing that the conviction was an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act because it was for “sexual abuse of a minor.”

An immigration judge ordered his removal, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. The Sixth Circuit denied his petition for review, deferring to the Board’s interpretation of the federal offense. The Supreme Court reversed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a conviction under a statute prohibiting consensual intercourse with a 16- or 17-year-old, based solely on the participants’ ages, qualifies as “sexual abuse of a minor” under the INA.

Holding

No. For statutory rape offenses based solely on the participants’ ages, the generic federal offense requires the younger person to be under 16. California’s statute reaches conduct outside that definition.

Reasoning

The INA makes removability turn on the conviction, not the person’s actual conduct. Under the categorical approach, the Court compared the least conduct California’s statute criminalizes with the generic federal offense. That conduct includes consensual intercourse between someone almost 18 and someone just over 21.

The phrase “sexual abuse of a minor” is undefined in the INA. In the statutory rape context, the relevant age is the age of consent to sex, not the general age of legal adulthood. Dictionary evidence pointed to 16 as the usual age of consent; defining the federal offense by whatever a particular state prohibits would defeat the categorical approach’s uniform standard.

The INA’s placement of sexual abuse of a minor alongside murder and rape among aggravated felonies supported a definition covering especially serious offenses. A related federal sexual-abuse statute also used an age-of-consent threshold of 16. The Court treated that statute as evidence of meaning, not as a definition to import wholesale.

State criminal codes reinforced that reading: in 1996, a substantial majority of jurisdictions set the age of consent at 16 for offenses based solely on the participants’ ages. The Court distinguished offenses involving a special relationship of trust, which may use a higher age threshold.

Because California criminalizes age-based intercourse involving 16- and 17-year-olds, its offense is broader than the generic federal offense. The statute’s three-year age difference does not cure that mismatch. The Court left open whether the generic offense requires an age difference and how it applies to offenses involving a special relationship of trust.

The Court found that the statute, read in context, unambiguously foreclosed the Board’s interpretation. It therefore had no need to decide whether Chevron deference or the rule of lenity would govern an ambiguity.