What a load of absolute BS
 

Court rules for illegal immigrant in identity theft case

May. 4, 2009 01:35 PM
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A unanimous Supreme Court said Monday that undocumented workers who use phony IDs can't be considered identity thieves without proof they knew they were stealing real people's Social Security and other numbers.

The court's decision limits federal authorities' use of a 2004 law, intended to get tough on identity thieves, against immigrants who are picked up in workplace raids and found to be using false Social Security and alien registration numbers.

Advocates for immigrants had complained that federal authorities used the threat of prosecution on the identity theft charge, which carries a two-year mandatory prison term, to win guilty pleas on lesser charges and acceptance of prompt deportation.

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"These prosecutions have been taken off the table," said Nina Perales, southwest regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The court, in an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, rejected the government's argument that prosecutors need only show that the identification numbers belong to someone else, regardless of whether the defendant knew it.

Breyer said intent is often easy to prove in what he called classic identity theft. "Where a defendant has used another person's information to get access to that person's bank account, the government can prove knowledge with little difficulty," Breyer said.

But immigrants without proper documentation need identity documents and often buy them from forgers, never knowing if they belong to anyone.

Such was the case with the undocumented worker on the winning side Monday. Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican immigrant employed at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill., traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from someone who trades in counterfeit IDs.

Unlike earlier fictitious numbers Flores-Figueroa used, these numbers belonged to real people.

Flores-Figueroa had worked at the plant under a false name for six years. His decision to use his real name and exchange one set of phony numbers for another aroused his employer's suspicions.

He was arrested in 2006 and convicted on false document and identity theft charges.

He appealed his conviction as an identity thief, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis upheld the conviction. With appeals courts divided on the issue, the Supreme Court stepped into the case.

The Bush administration used the identity theft law hundreds of times last year. Workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

After last year's raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, authorities charged 270 undocumented workers with identity theft. They all accepted plea deals in which they also agreed not to contest deportation.

But illustrating the arbitrary nature of the law - which several justices commented on during arguments in February - an additional 100 workers arrested in the same raid faced less serious charges because their identification numbers were made up.

The Obama administration has shifted the main focus of immigration raids to employers.

The case is Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108.

Yep, its BS.

I agree.

Good grief. Have any of you read the actual statute?

This is the first sentence of the Court's opinion:You think people should be found guilty of violating that statute without evidence that they knew their fake identification belonged to another person? What kind of statutory interpretation is that?

If you want to see some BS, look at what these prosecutors were doing:If that's true, those prosecutors should face ethics charges.

Your opinion is Bull ****, as is anyone who defends the criminal aliens.
They didn't care if they were assuming someone elses identity or not-anyway they knew they were lieing and breaking the law, they have networks here in texafornia where they are told where to purchase bogus drivers liscenses that will fool either the chp or texas athorities until ran thru a computer, and along with a fake ss# they are set to do any buisness needed with untold buisnesses/agencys winking-knowing and accepting it to get their buisness-and noone will go after any of them!

Yes. I'm sure you've heard the saying "ignorance of the law is no excuse. Though in this case I'm equally sure they were perfectly aware that buying fake ID's was a criminal act to start with. If they didn't personally know the individuals whose identities were stolen, so what?

In your world no doubt.

- Peter.

Sounds like prosecutorial misconduct to me. Disbarment might be sufficient to dissuade that kind of behavior.

Seems to be working for some in this thread.

There are laws that are being violated, no doubt. The statute that these prosecutors were applying in not valid for the crime. Just as when someone gets killed, murder is not always the charge. It is the prosecutors duty to charge people with the right violation, not to charge people who have no understanding of the law with something to scare them into pleading out to a lesser offense.

Yes. I've heard the saying many times. It has nothing to do with this case.

The statute makes it a felony to knowingly possess another person's identity. Whether the defendant knew that was the law is irrelevant. What matters is whether the prosecution can prove its case. Where's evidence that they knew they were buying anyone's identity? For all they knew, the fake id papers had random numbers on them.Fine. If that's a crime, charge them with it. If it's not a crime, then write your congressman and tell him to make it a crime.I agree. Whether they knew the individuals whose identities were stolen is not relevant. That's a different case.You mean the world that reads the English language and requires the state to prove every element of the charge?

This opinion from someone who's only contact with this group of people is possibly 120 seconds it takes to drive thru New Rochelle on the Bronks thruway at 80 mph.
so all they have to do is automatically lie about it--No no I DEED naa nooi waas dooin anythin rong, and they get out of it and immediately go steal SOMEONE ELSES identity and carry on, over and over again because some supreme court justice just hobbled some "ARBITRARY" tool that was working. So when central CT it overrun by them and YOUR hospitals are closing because of them and every other thing that comes from their illegal mass imigration---YOU will love your new neighbours.

You seem to be forgetting about one of the most American of all laws, the Fifth Amendment:As inconvenient as it may seem, an illegal immigrant is a "person" as that term is used the Fifth Amendment, so he didn't have to lie about anything to avoid conviction. He had the right to remain silent and force the state to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. That's how it's done in America.There is no evidence that the defendant stole anyone's identity.It wasn't "some supreme court justice." It was a unanimous United States Supreme Court, including Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. You seem to have a low opinion of that institution. I will grant you that the Supreme Court is not perfect, but it is the best institution of its type ever created and it deserves our appreciation and respect.Somehow I don't think that our Supreme Court could prevent that from happening simply by ignoring the rule of law.

We need to care and love the illegals - they're people too, you know. Yuck.

Works for me. Put the employers of these upstanding people alongside them too.

Give me a break. They broke the law. They knew at the time it was illegal and they went ahead with it.

Other countries are so much stricter regarding foreigners. When I worked in Europe, I had to check in with the local police station every so often to get my papers revalidated. They were keeping tabs on me, even though I was a working and non-trouble causing individual. Here it seems anything goes.

Eventually it will make more sense for us all to renounce our citizenships, rather than keep paying taxes and playing by the rules. Then we can just buy fake government identification from strangers, not knowing of course that it maybe belongs to someone else.

X100000000000000000000000........;)