United States v. Hamed, No. 19-1184 (8th Cir. 2020)
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At issue in this appeal is what effect, if any, a guilty plea has on later denaturalization proceedings. In this case, defendant had pleaded guilty to violating and conspiring to violate Iraqi sanctions and to misusing his organization's tax exempt status and omitting relevant, material information from tax forms. Eight years after pleading guilty and eighteen years after first becoming a citizen, the government commenced proceedings to denaturalize defendant. The district court agreed with the government that defendant's failure to disclose his criminal activities called for denaturalization.
The Eighth Circuit held that all three judicial estoppel factors favored applying the doctrine: first, the court stated that defendant's current position is clearly inconsistent with the one from his criminal proceeding; second, the district court had to accept the plea's factual basis, including defendant's statements during the plea colloquy; and third, defendant would derive an unfair advantage if he were allowed to change his position now. Therefore, the court cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to consider defendant's lack-of-knowledge defense. Finally, the court rejecting defendant's defense of laches because the doctrine of laches does not apply to the United States when it is acting in its sovereign capacity.
Court Description: [Stras, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Colloton, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Denaturalization. In action by the government to denaturalize Hamed, he was judicially estopped from taking a position inconsistent with his admissions in his plea proceedings in a prior criminal action; in that criminal case, Hamed admitted he knowingly and willfully conspired to violate Iraq sanctions orders, and this is clearly inconsistent with his current position that he was unaware at the time he applied for naturalization that he had knowingly committed a crime for which he had not been arrested; further, Hamed was repeatedly warned in the criminal proceedings that his plea could affect his immigration status; the doctrine of laches does not apply to the U.S. when it is acting in its sovereign capacity, and Hamed's argument that an 8-year delay between his conviction and this denaturalization proceeding was too long must be rejected. Judge Colloton, concurring.
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