Post-Conviction Relief

Post-conviction relief could help you avoid deportation. Contact a New York immigration lawyer from Pozo Goldstein, LLP for help.

For anyone, a criminal conviction can result in adverse effects, but for an immigrant in the United States, a criminal conviction could jeopardize his or her ability to remain in the U.S. As such, post-conviction relief has come to play an important role in defending immigrants in removal proceedings. With no defense against removal or other type of relief available, post-conviction relief could be the only viable way for an immigrant to effectively avoid deportation.

Post-conviction relief calls for the criminal court to eliminate the conviction of an immigrant, thus allowing the immigrant to effectively avoid deporation. Therefore, post-conviction relief is considered to be one of the strongest forms of legal defense when looking to avoid removal in an immigration proceeding. If you wish to pursue this avenue of deportation defense, you should not wait to contact a New York immigration lawyer from Pozo Goldstein, LLP for help.

Steps for Success

Generally speaking, there are four necessary steps that must be taken in order to successfully obtain post-conviction relief after a criminal court proceeding in which the immigrant is found guilty. These four elements are as follows:

1. A new disposition that has been registered as both immigration-harmless and court / prosecution acceptable must be established
2. A vehicle by which to obtain the new disposition must be identified
3. Grounds for legal invalidity to be used to persuade the court to vacate a previous judgment must be recognized
4. Equities and / or favorable factors to be used in the persuasion of the judge and prosecution that the noncitizen deserves post-conviction relief must be predicated

To help you better understand each of these avenues, we provide a breakdown of each, with depictions of what does and does not qualify in the definitions of each step.

New disposition – an analysis of the immigration consequences of a new disposition must be made in the evaluation of post-conviction relief. An analysis of this nature will look at the possibility for success on a petition for writ or motion to vacate judgment. The immigration consequences of different types of bargains will be considered, as will the feasibility of exercising the right to trial by jury.

Procedural vehicle – the procedural vehicle must be capable of preventing the immigration consequences that are currently being threatened against a convicted person. Such a vehicle must also be able to provide an appropriate means of reducing the sentence, and it must exude the possibility for potential success in a quick enough manner to avoid the listed immigration consequences.

Grounds for relief – counsel can only vacate a conviction if there is a ground of legal invalidity. One of the most significant grounds of conviction invalidity is ineffective assistance of counsel. In such grounds, the immigrant must also be able to establish prejudice to obtain a reversal of the conviction. Many other grounds of invalidity exist as well.

Equities / favorable factors – post-conviction relief can be profoundly impacted by the client’s equities or other favorable factors. For example, if a client’s equities are found to be insufficient, then efforts at post-conviction relief will be all but hopeless unless the ground of invalidity is strong enough to avoid resistance.

The execution of these steps should only be handled by an experienced and well-qualified attorney such as that which can be found on our team. As such, we encourage you to contact our offices today.

What is a safe haven?

As stated above, a new disposition must be identified in order to successfully achieve post-conviction relief. A safe haven serves as an alternative disposition of the criminal case; it is a disposition that does not trigger the same adverse immigration consequences that might otherwise be felt. There are two primary reasons for the necessity of the safe haven disposition in the successful obtainment of post-conviction relief:

1. The identified safe haven is what should have been obtained by the original defense counsel on the case. The necessity in providing the safe haven stems from the need to establish prejudice from counsel’s error for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.

2. A new safe haven must also be obtained. In some cases, the two safe havens will be the same, but they do not need to be in order to experience success in the case.

Pozo Goldstein: Effective Defense When You Need it Most

At Pozo Goldstein, LLP, more than 90 years of combined legal experience can be put to work for the benefit of your well-being. Our team of legal professionals consists of former immigration prosecutors as well as a former judge. We have dedicated our careers to helping aliens, permanent residents, citizens, and the like in all matters of immigration law, and we are prepared to do the same for you.

A member of the Pozo Goldstein team is accessible 24/7 to answer your questions and address your concerns. For your convenience, we offer free in-house case consultations at our New York office, so do not hesitate to contact a New York City immigration attorney from our team today.