DRUG/CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN BERGEN (HACKENSACK), PASSAIC (PATERSON) AND MORRIS (MORRISTOWN) COUNTIES: DEPORTATION CONSEQUENCES IN PLEA ARRANGEMENT RETURNED TO THE SUPREME COURT

In State v. Nunez Valadez, the New Jersey Supreme Court determined that the advice given to a defendant with respect to the potential of deportation was insufficient and, as a result, defendant was allowed to retract  his guilty plea and that was so, even though the plea form required the defendant to answer a question as to whether he realized that a plea "may" lead to deportation.  Later in 2010, the United States Supreme Court in a case titled, Padilla v. Kentucky concluded that a defendant who offered a guilty plea without specific advice of the consequences of deportation was deprived of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

Today, New Jersey Supreme Court is again grappling with the question of whether inappropriate advice as to deportation consequences resulting from a guilty plea should be applied retroactively. On this issue, the government argued that the Nunez Valadez/Padilla decisions should not be applied retroactively, because both courts created a new principle of law and, to that extent, retroactive application was not possible. The defense, on the other hand, contended that in the Padilla decision, Justice John Paul Stevens noted rather pointedly that the court was applying a principal that was grounded upon "professional norms" that dated back as far 1999. The defense also argued that the Court should endorse the Appellate Division’s decision to apply the rule retroactively.