Ninth Circuit: Tellez-Ramirez v. Garland

Under modified categorical review, the state drug statute is a valid immigration predicate.  The list of drug classes doesn't establish several means of committing a single crime in itself, but is rather a list of  elements establishing distinct violations--this is due to the varying lengths of sentence, caselaw referencing the need to prove specific substances within a single class, and the fact that the specific illicit substance is named within the jury instructions.  

The overbreadth of the state statute relative to the federal crime doesn't import a similar overbreadth into the mens rea; a belief that the substance was proscribed under state law would suffice for a state conviction that could pass Immigration muster, as the state mens rea and federal mens rea requirements are identical.

State caselaw incorporating solicitation into aiding and abetting, and under which, by statute, the conduct is culpable as the conduct of a principal under the specific state statute doesn't make the specific state statute broader than the federal version, since solicitation alone would be an inchoate offense distinct from an accessory's conviction as a principal under the specific statute, which would require a completed offense--not mere solicitation.


Tellez-Ramirez v. Garland