CA8 Law Student Victory: Quito-Guachichulca v. Garland (Agg. Fel.; Deference)

Quito-Guachichulca v. Garland

"The question in this case is whether Minnesota’s crime of third-degree criminal sexual conduct falls within the federal definition of “rape.” The answer is no, so we grant Simon Quito-Guachichulca’s petition for review. ... Our review is de novo, see Huynh v. Garland, 102 F.4th 943, 944 (8th Cir. 2024), and we no longer treat the government’s views as controlling or even “especially informative.” Loper Bright, 144 S. Ct. at 2267. Deference to the Board, in other words, is now a relic of the past.  (Emphasis added.)  fn1 -  The “deference” we used to “generally accord . . . to the [Board’s] interpretation” of deportation-authorizing statutes, Bakor v. Barr, 958 F.3d 732, 735 (8th Cir. 2020), did not survive Loper Bright. See 144 S. Ct. at 2273 (“Chevron is overruled.”); see also T.L. ex rel. Ingram v. United States, 443 F.3d 956, 960 (8th Cir. 2006) (“[A] panel may depart from circuit precedent based on an intervening opinion of the Supreme Court that undermines the prior precedent.”). ... What the government is essentially asking us to do is agree that certain “analogous” state crimes must count as rape and then reverse engineer a definition to make sure they do. ... The problem is that we are reading a statute, not writing one. ... We accordingly grant the petition for review and vacate and remand for further proceedings."

[Hats off to Prof. Seiko Shastri and Prof. Nadia Anguiano and their students, Mollie Clark Ahsan, Amirah Ellison, Coryn Johnson and Alex Lloyd, and Khaled Alrabe for amicus NIPNLG!  Listen to the oral argument here.]