State v. Vera

FIDEL, Presiding Judge,

specially concurring:

I concur in the decision of the majority because, as indicated by the majority, there is no evidence in the record to support appellant’s claim that his trial counsel failed to inform him that deportation would result from his plea. Whether deportation can be dismissed as merely a “collateral consequence” which need not be anticipated by a knowing pleader or whether it is so important a consequence that its risk must be explained is, in my view, so significant a question as to require eventual reexamination of State v. Rodriguez. See Comment, Collateral Consequences to a Guilty Plea in the Federal Criminal Justice System, 16 Harvard Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review 157, 171-175 (1982). A prerequisite to such examination, however, would be a showing by petition for post-conviction relief, Rule 32, 17 A.R.S. Rules of Criminal Procedure, that the defendant neither knew of the consequence of deportation from counsel nor from any other source. Because there is no such showing in the present record, I concur in my colleagues’ decision to affirm.