And you thought I was kidding.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted cert in a case that can change life as you know it. In Padilla v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, the court will consider defense counsel's duty to inform their non-citizen clients about the immigration consequences of a plea.
The issues presented, as framed by the criminal and immigration law professors acting as amici curie are:
Does the 6th Amendment's guarantee of effective assistance of counsel require a criminal defense attorney to advise a client who is not a citizen that pleading guilty to an aggravated felony will trigger mandatory, automatic deportation?
If a criminal defense attorney misadvises his non-citizen client that a guilty plea will not lead to deportation, and that misadvice induces a guilty plea, can that misadvice amount to ineffective assistance of counsel and warrant setting aside the guilty plea?
Hold on to your seats friends. If the Supremes say "yes" to either question, I think we are on our way to a breakdown of the civil-criminal divide that has kept non-citizens from getting free defense in deportation proceedings all this time.
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