Matter of Kwan Ho KIM, Respondent
U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Board of Immigration Appeals
Decided January 31, 2017
26 I&N Dec. 912 (BIA 2017)
Interim Decision #3885
FOR RESPONDENT: Claire H. Kim, Esquire, Los Angeles, California
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: R.R. Stern, Assistant Chief Counsel
BEFORE: Board Panel: PAULEY, MALPHRUS, and MULLANE, Board Members.
MALPHRUS, Board Member:
In a decision dated November 16, 2015, an Immigration Judge terminated the removal proceedings against the respondent. The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS“) has appealed from that decision. The appeal will be sustained, the removal proceedings will be reinstated, and the record will be remanded to the Immigration Judge.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The respondent is a native and citizen of South Korea and a lawful permanent resident of the United States. In January 2015, the DHS charged him with removability under section 237(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act,
It is undisputed that the respondent was convicted of mayhem and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of at least 1 year. The Immigration
II. ANALYSIS
A. Categorical Approach
To determine whether the respondent‘s conviction renders him removable under section 237(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the Act, we employ the categorical approach outlined by the Supreme Court in Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990), by comparing the elements of section 203 of the California Penal Code to those of the Federal generic definition of a crime of violence in section 101(a)(43)(F) of the Act. An element of a statute is what the “prosecution must prove to sustain a conviction” and the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt. Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2248 (2016) (quoting Black‘s Law Dictionary 634 (10th ed. 2014)). In other words, an element of section 203 is any fact “necessarily involved” in a mayhem violation. Moncrieffe v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 1678, 1684 (2013) (emphasis added); see also Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276, 2299 (2013) (discussing Taylor‘s “demanding requirement that . . . a prior conviction ‘necessarily’ involved . . . facts equating to [the] generic” offense (Alito, J., dissenting) (quoting Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 24 (2005) (plurality opinion))).
Where the text of a State statute does not explicitly set forth an element of the generic crime, we may look to, among other things, State case law or jury instructions to discern whether the pertinent element is present. See Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2249, 2256-57 (authorizing recourse to, inter alia, “state court decision[s]” and “jury instructions” to discern whether an aspect of a State statute is an element of the offense); see also Ramirez v. Lynch, 810 F.3d 1127, 1131 (9th Cir. 2016) (“In identifying the elements of the statute of conviction, we look not only to the text of the statute, but also to how state courts have interpreted and applied the statute.“).
Because our examination is limited to the elements of section 203 of the California Penal Code, or what a violation of this provision “necessarily involved, . . . we must presume that the conviction ‘rested upon [nothing] more than th[e] least of the acts’ criminalized, and then determine whether even those acts are encompassed by the generic federal offense.”
B. Crime of Violence
A crime of violence is defined in relevant part as “an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.”
Section 203 of the California Penal Code provides as follows:
Every person who unlawfully and maliciously deprives a human being of a member of his body, or disables, disfigures, or renders it useless, or cuts or disables the tongue, or puts out an eye, or slits the nose, ear, or lip, is guilty of mayhem.
Pursuant to the pertinent jury instructions, the State must prove—and a jury must find—that a violator of this statute (1) committed an unlawful and malicious act (2) that resulted in another person‘s body part being removed, disabled, or disfigured. See Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury
After reviewing the statutory text and the above jury instructions, the Immigration Judge terminated proceedings, concluding that section 203 lacked an explicit element regarding the use, attempted use, or threatened use of violent force against another person under § 16(a). However, her analysis does not recognize that, even where the terms “use” and “force” are not explicitly included in a statute‘s text or the related jury instructions, the requisite use of violent force under Johnson and Leocal may be intrinsic to—or “necessarily involved” in—all violations of the statute. Moncrieffe, 133 S. Ct. at 1684; see also Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2256; Ramirez, 810 F.3d at 1131.
1. “Use” of Force
The parties do not dispute that section 203 requires a defendant to actively “use” force within the meaning of § 16(a), and based on the elements of the offense, we conclude that it does. Mayhem under California law must be committed “maliciously,” which means that it must be done with an “intent to vex, annoy, or injure another person, or an intent to do a wrongful act.” Santana, 301 P.3d at 1163 (emphases added) (quoting People v. Bryan, 12 Cal. Rptr. 361, 364 (Cal. Ct. App. 1961)) (internal quotation mark omitted); see also
“Malicious” intent may be inferred through a defendant‘s actions, which must necessarily result in “the types of injuries” listed in section 203. People v. Rodarte, 168 Cal. Rptr. 3d 12, 21 (Cal. Ct. App. 2014) (quoting People v. McKelvy, 239 Cal. Rptr. 782, 785 (Cal. Ct. App. 1987)). For this reason, California courts characterize mayhem as a crime that only requires a general intent, rather than a specific intent to maim, disable, or disfigure. See, e.g., id. However, a “‘general intent’ designation” under California law does not reflect that the requisite “use” of force under Leocal is
The malice requirement under section 203 ensures “that the proscribed conduct was ‘a deliberate and intentional act, as distinguished from an accidental or unintentional’ one,” even if there was no specific intent to bring about the requisite type of injury. Rodarte, 168 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 21 (emphasis added) (quoting People v. Atkins, 18 P.3d 660, 668 (Cal. 2001)); see also id. at 22 (observing that even the intent to “‘vex, injure, or annoy’ connotes a knowing violation of social norms” (emphasis added)).
Accordingly, the term “maliciously” in section 203 signifies something more than acting “recklessly,” which is separately defined under California law as meaning that “a person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk.”
2. “Physical Force”
The respondent‘s violation of section 203 of the California Penal Code must also have necessarily involved the use of “violent” physical force discussed in Johnson. The relevant jury instructions make clear that a jury must find that a defendant‘s malicious act resulted in removal of a part of the victim‘s body; disabling or making useless a part of the victim‘s body; permanently disfiguring that person; cutting or disabling that person‘s tongue; slitting that person‘s nose, ear, or lip; or putting out or injuring that person‘s eye.5 See CALCRIM No. 801; CALJIC No. 9.30.
While these instructions do not explicitly state that a defendant must use “force” when, for example, putting out or injuring a victim‘s eye, it is clear that a jury must necessarily find that the defendant used some degree of force in doing so, because an eye cannot be put out or injured without force. See United States v. Nason, 269 F.3d 10, 20 (1st Cir. 2001) (holding that Maine‘s assault statute, which requires proof that an assault “cause physical injury,” contains an implied element requiring the use of some degree of physical force, because “to cause physical injury, force necessarily must be physical in nature“); see also United States v. Waters, 823 F.3d 1062, 1064 (7th Cir. 2016) (noting that “proving intentional causation of bodily harm ‘unambiguously requires proving physical force‘”
Because the jury instructions make clear that a malicious act under section 203 must necessarily be attended by some degree of force, the critical inquiry then becomes whether the force involved in all violations of section 203 must necessarily be “violent” in nature, as contemplated by Johnson. For the following reasons, we hold that it does.
As noted, section 203 requires a jury to find that a defendant committed a malicious act that resulted in another person‘s body part being removed, disabled, or disfigured. Put another way, a jury must find that a defendant‘s malicious act under section 203 caused “great bodily injury” to that person. Santana, 301 P.3d at 1163 (recognizing that mayhem includes a “great bodily injury” component). California law defines “great bodily injury” as a “significant or substantial injury.” People v. Escobar, 837 P.2d 1100, 1103 (Cal. 1992).7
We conclude that a “malicious“—or deliberate and intentional—act that causes “great bodily injury” under California law must necessarily involve force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person pursuant to Johnson. First, as a matter of logic “it is impossible to cause” the great bodily injury contemplated by section 203 “without using force ‘capable of’ producing that result.” United States v. Castleman, 134 S. Ct. 1405, 1416-17 (2014) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Moreover, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has explained that the degree of force necessarily involved in a conviction “based on ‘force likely to produce great bodily injury[]’ . . . must necessarily go beyond the ‘least touching,’ and represents ‘actual force’ that is violent in nature.” Grajeda, 581 F.3d at 1192 (emphases added); see also People v. Reed, 203 Cal. Rptr. 659, 661 (Cal. Ct. App.
Arellano Hernandez v. Lynch, 831 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir. 2016), supports our conclusion in this regard. In that case, the court reiterated that a conviction for criminal threats under section 422 of the California Penal Code is categorically for a crime of violence under § 16(a), despite the fact that the State statute and relevant case law failed to specify the degree of force that must attend a proscribed threat. Id. at 1130-32. The court reasoned that since the statute requires a violator of section 422 to “willfully threaten[] to commit a crime which will result in . . . great bodily injury to another person,” all violations of this provision must necessarily involve “violent force” pursuant to Johnson. Id. (emphasis added). Likewise, because a jury must find that a mayhem offense in violation of section 203 of the California Penal Code involved a deliberate and intentional act that will result in great bodily injury to another person, all violations of this provision must also involve a degree of force that is “violent” in nature within the meaning of § 16(a). See id.; Santana, 301 P.3d at 1163.
This remains the case even if mayhem under section 203 is committed through the use of indirect force—for instance, where a victim is disabled through the use of poison. See Arellano Hernandez, 831 F.3d at 1130-31; see also Matter of Guzman-Polanco, 26 I&N Dec. 806, 807 (BIA 2016) (recognizing the circuit split regarding whether the indirect use of force satisfies the violent force requirement in Johnson and listing cases). The Ninth Circuit has determined that a violation of section 422 of the California Penal Code categorically falls within the generic definition of § 16(a), even if the threat was to poison another person. Arellano Hernandez, 831 F.3d at 1131. While the court acknowledged cases in the
In Castleman, the Supreme Court made clear that “[t]he ‘use of force’ . . . is not the act of ‘sprinkl[ing]’ the poison; it is the act of employing poison knowingly as a device to cause physical harm. That the harm occurs indirectly, rather than directly (as with a kick or punch), does not matter.” Castleman, 134 S. Ct. at 1415. To hold otherwise, the Court opined, would be equivalent to “say[ing] that pulling the trigger on a gun is not a ‘use of force’ because it is the bullet, not the trigger, that actually strikes the victim.” Id. Thus, even if a violation of section 203 involves the indirect use of force, such as the use of poison, it still necessarily involves the requisite use of violent force contemplated by Johnson. See Arellano Hernandez, 831 F.3d at 1131 (citing United States v. De La Fuente, 353 F.3d 766, 770-71 (9th Cir. 2003) (concluding that a threat of anthrax poisoning constitutes a “threatened use of physical force” because the defendant‘s “letters clearly threatened death by way of physical contact with anthrax spores“)).
Concluding that a violation of section 203 entails anything less than the use of violent force (such as an offensive touching) would require an impermissible application of legal imagination.9 See Moncrieffe, 133 S. Ct. at 1684-85. We are unable to envision how a mere offensive touching, in any practical sense, could be said to cause the removal of a limb, for example. See Ruiz-Morales v. Ashcroft, 361 F.3d 1219, 1222 (9th Cir. 2004) (analyzing whether a violation of section 203 qualified as a crime of violence under § 16(b) and rejecting the alien‘s “efforts to concoct an example of mayhem involving no physical force“). And we are unaware of any California case relating to the prosecution of an individual for the crime
III. CONCLUSION
Although the text of section 203 of the California Penal Code and the relevant jury instructions do not explicitly set forth an element regarding “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force,” the requisite use of violent force under Johnson and Leocal is necessarily involved in all violations of the statute. A defendant convicted under section 203 must necessarily act “maliciously“—that is, deliberately and intentionally. Such a deliberate and intentional act must necessarily involve the use of force, and, because that force must result in great bodily injury under California law, the force used must necessarily be violent in nature. For these reasons, we conclude that a violation of section 203 is categorically a crime of violence under § 16(a).
The respondent‘s mayhem conviction under section 203 renders him removable under section 237(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the Act as an alien convicted of an aggravated felony crime of violence under section 101(a)(43)(F). The Immigration Judge therefore erred when she terminated his removal proceedings. Accordingly, the DHS‘s appeal will be sustained, the removal proceedings will be reinstated, and the record will be remanded to give the respondent an opportunity to pursue the relief he sought before the proceedings were terminated.
ORDER: The appeal of the Department of Homeland Security is sustained, the decision of the Immigration Judge is vacated, and the removal proceedings are reinstated.
FURTHER ORDER: The record is remanded to the Immigration Judge for further proceedings consistent with the foregoing opinion and for the entry of a new decision.