United States v. Maureen Chan


NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 18 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 16-55469 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:93-cr-00583 v. MAUREEN ELAINE CHAN, AKA MEMORANDUM* Maureen Ridley Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding Argued and submitted April 11, 2018 Pasadena, CA Before: BEA and MURGUIA, Circuit Judges, and MOLLOY,** District Judge. Defendant-Appellant Maureen Elaine Chan, aka Maureen Ridley (“Ridley”) appeals the district court’s dismissal of her petition for a writ of error coram nobis. We review de novo a district court’s denial of a petition for a writ of error coram * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Donald W. Molloy, United States District Judge for the District of Montana, sitting by designation. nobis. United States v. Chan, 792 F.3d 1151, 1153 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Riedl, 496 F.3d 1003, 1005 (9th Cir. 2007)). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we reverse. Ridley, a native of South Africa, has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States since 1973. On June 22, 1993, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Ridley with six counts of perjury. According to Ridley’s declaration filed in support of the instant petition for a writ of coram nobis, Ridley asked her trial counsel what immigration consequences a guilty plea might carry. According to Ridley’s declaration, her counsel’s “response was simply that [Ridley] had nothing to worry about”: “He assured me that I did not face any adverse immigration consequences and that I would not be excluded from the United States.” Ridley pleaded guilty to three of the six counts in the indictment. On May 15, 2000, the district court sentenced Ridley to two months in prison, three years of supervised release, and an assessment of $150. In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against Ridley based on the 1993 perjury conviction. Ridley petitioned the district court below for a writ of error coram nobis. “[T]he writ of error coram nobis is a highly unusual remedy, available only to correct grave injustices in a narrow range of cases where no more conventional remedy is applicable.” Riedl, 496 F.3d at 1005. “[W]hereas petitions for habeas 2 16-55469 corpus relief and motions for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 may only be filed by persons who are in government custody, ‘[t]he writ of error coram nobis affords a remedy to attack a conviction when the petitioner has served his sentence and is no longer in custody.’” United States v. Kwan, 407 F.3d 1005, 1009 (9th Cir. 2005) (alteration in original), abrogated on other grounds by Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010). “Specifically, the writ [of coram nobis] provides a remedy for those suffering from the lingering collateral consequences of an unconstitutional or ...

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