The California Supreme Court has thrown out a Kern County woman’s decade-old drug conviction, ruling that simply signing a form warning of possible deportation isn’t enough to prove a defendant truly understood what she was giving up when she pleaded guilty.
The unanimous decision, issued Thursday, centers on Angela Hernandez, a Mexican citizen who had lived in the United States as a legal permanent resident for 19 years before her 2013 arrest on two drug trafficking charges in Kern County. At the time, Hernandez was 55 years old with a father, husband, children and grandchildren all living in the U.S.
During her plea hearing, Hernandez initialed a standard advisement form stating that a guilty plea could trigger deportation, a bar on reentry, and denial of naturalization — and that deportation was mandatory for certain offenses. A certified interpreter confirmed the document had been translated in full, and her defense attorney believed she understood its implications.
She pleaded guilty and served 27 days of a 180-day sentence. Two years later, with permission from the state parole department, she traveled to Mexico. When she attempted to return through Los Angeles International Airport, a customs official detained her and launched deportation proceedings.
Hernandez later told the court she had signed the form without grasping its consequences.
“Well, because if he’s my attorney and he tells me, ‘Sign here, initial here,’ I’m going to sign,” Hernandez testified, according to the court’s ruling. “I was also very nervous at that time.”
She spent years trying to get her conviction thrown out, arguing her attorney had failed to adequately represent her. Both a trial judge and an appellate court rejected that claim. But the state Supreme Court found legal errors in how those courts evaluated her case and reversed the rulings.
Writing for the majority, Justice Joshua Groban said that although Hernandez verbally agreed to the deportation warning during her plea hearing, her subsequent actions undercut any claim that she actually comprehended it.
“Her decisions to request and obtain permission from the parole department to leave the United States, travel to Mexico, and attempt to reenter lawfully through a port of entry support the inference that she did not ‘meaningfully understand’ the immigration consequences of her conviction,” Groban wrote.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had urged the court to uphold Hernandez’s conviction. But public defender organizations and immigrant advocacy groups filed briefs arguing that California courts have applied inconsistent standards when it comes to informing defendants about the immigration fallout of guilty pleas.
The court directed the 5th District Court of Appeal to send Hernandez’s case back to the trial court, which must now vacate her convictions.
In a separate opinion agreeing in part and dissenting in part, Justice Carol Corrigan called for Hernandez to present a fuller record once the case returns to the lower court.
“The trial court can resolve factual and credibility questions, then issue an appropriate ruling in light of all relevant evidence,” Corrigan wrote. “If the record demonstrates that the legal error impaired her ability to meaningfully understand and accept the immigration consequences of her plea, the motion should be granted.”
Original source: CalMatters
