In an April 29, 2011 decision the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals handily picked apart the sloppy legal reasoning that seems to have become the government norm since the author of the indefensible torture memos became a law professor.

In a detailed and well reasoned decision, the 10th circuit reversed the BIA and vacated a removal order where the immigrant, a lawful permanent resident, had been convicted of failing to properly register as a sex offender pursuant to Colorado law, and where that offense was deemed by the government to be a crime involving moral turpitude.

Important Case Law:

• Detailed discussion of Chevron deference finding no deference required.
• Agency decisions which conflict with earlier decisions are entitled to considerably less deference than a consistently held agency view.
• Sexual crimes such as statutory rape, child abuse, and spousal abuse are crimes involving moral turpitude
• Registration as a sex offender is not analogous to sexual crimes themselves, but rather is a regulatory offense.
• Regulatory offenses in  most cases cannot by definition be crimes involving moral turpitude.
• This regulatory offense involves no morally turpitudenous mental state and is therefore not a crime involving moral turpitude.
• The BIA's interpretation of moral turpitude in Tober-Lobi is unreasonable.