SJC: ‘Padilla’ can be applied retroactively

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The Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), is retroactive, but that the conviction of a defendant charged with drug and liquor offenses nevertheless will stand.

Defendant Michael Clarke claimed that his guilty pleas should be vacated under Padilla because his trial counsel provided him ineffective assistance by not advising him that a likely consequence of his guilty plea would be deportation.

Writing for the SJC, Justice Robert J. Cordy noted that Padilla can be applied retroactively on collateral review of guilty pleas, such as the defendant’s, which were obtained after the enactment of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

But, Cordy said, Clarke’s motion to vacate his guilty pleas should nevertheless be denied because “the defendant has made an insufficient showing that had he been properly informed of the immigration consequences of his guilty pleas, there is a reasonable probability that the result of [his] proceeding would have been different.”

The 31-page decision is Commonwealth v. Clarke, Lawyers Weekly No. 10-089-11. The full text of the ruling can be found by clicking here.