IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON STATE OF WASHINGTON, No. 78767-5-I Petitioner, DIVISION ONE v. UNPUBLISHED OPINION BRUCE HAROLD NEMETH, Respondent. FILED: February 3, 2020 CHUN, J. — Bruce Nemeth, a Canadian citizen, pleaded guilty to obstructing a public servant in 1998. Nemeth entered his plea unrepresented by counsel. Nearly two decades later, in 2017, Nemeth moved to withdraw his plea, claiming that he entered it without knowledge that it could lead to his deportation. The district court denied Nemeth’s motion. The superior court, however, then granted the motion on a RALJ appeal. The State now appeals. For the reasons discussed herein, we reverse the superior court’s decision. I. BACKGROUND Nemeth is a Canadian citizen living in the United States. In 1998, Nemeth pleaded guilty in district court to obstructing a public servant. Nemeth entered the plea unrepresented by counsel. Nemeth claims the judicial officer who accepted his plea did not inform him that his offense could result in his deportation. The docket for his conviction lacks any specific reference to him being informed of the immigration consequences of his plea. No. 78767-5-1/2 Nemeth says that after the 2016 United States presidential election, he began to fear his conviction could serve as a possible basis for his deportation. Thus, in 2017, Nemeth sought to withdraw his guilty plea on the ground that he was not informed of its immigration consequences. Nemeth filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea in district court, which the court commissioner denied. Nemeth filed a second motion to withdraw his guilty plea, supported by a declaration claiming that he did not know the possible immigration consequences of his plea at the time he entered it, and claiming that his plea constituted a violation of the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 176 L. Ed. 2d 284 (2010). The district court commissioner treated the second motion as a motion to reconsider, and denied it. Nemeth appealed to the superior court. At the RALJ hearing, the superior court indicated that Nemeth’s declaration, plus the lack of any mention of immigration consequences in the 1998 docket, persuaded it that the court commissioner had not originally informed Nemeth of the possible immigration consequences of his plea. But the superior court ordered a reference hearing in the district court and requested findings of fact. Notably, the superior court said that it would not “restrict the nature of the reference hearing.” Nemeth presented the only evidence at the reference hearing—his testimony, which the district court found lacked credibility. The district court again denied Nemeth’s motion. 2 No. 78767-5-113 When the parties appeared before the superior court again, it adhered to its previous position that Nemeth had not been informed of the possible immigration consequences of the plea, since the State had provided no evidence to rebut Nemeth’s assertion that he had not received immigration warnings from the court. The superior court concluded that Nemeth’s motion to vacate ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals