Federal Witness-Retaliation Conspiracy Under 18 U.S.C. § 1513(b) Is Categorically a CIMT; CIMT Ground Not Vague as Applied

3.1. Precedents Cited

The opinion is precedent-heavy, using prior Second Circuit, Supreme Court, and BIA-linked authorities to (i) articulate the categorical approach; (ii) define CIMT; (iii) address post-Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo interpretive methodology and stare decisis; (iv) apply vagueness doctrine; and (v) apply law of the case.

A. Categorical approach and divisibility

• Gill v. Immigr. & Naturalization Serv. and Dalton v. Ashcroft are used to anchor the court’s “intrinsic nature of the offense” framing for CIMT analysis and to confirm the offense-elements focus.
• Pereida v. Wilkinson and Moncrieffe v. Holder supply the “minimum conduct” presumption that drives the court’s conclusion that the least culpable § 1513(b) conduct (threatening property damage) must still be assessed as morally turpitudinous when paired with the statute’s retaliatory intent.
• Harbin v. Sessions and Mathis v. United States appear in the court’s explanation of divisibility and the modified categorical approach; notably, the panel treats § 1513(b)’s “conduct portion” (bodily injury/property damage/threats) as indivisible “means,” relying in part on its earlier remand order in Dziedziach v. Barr.

B. Defining CIMT (reprehensible conduct + culpable mental state)

• Mendez v. Barr and Rodriguez v. Gonzales are central for the classic formulation: CIMTs “shock the public conscience” and are “inherently base, vile, or depraved,” and are “malum in se.”
• Mota v. Barr and Jang v. Garland provide the oft-cited two-element requirement (“reprehensible conduct and a culpable mental state”) and the emphasis that “it is in the intent that moral turpitude inheres.”
• Efstathiadis v. Holder, Mendez v. Mukasey, Michel v. Immigr. & Naturalization Serv., and the BIA decision In re Serna reinforce the intent/scienter-centered conception of CIMT.
• The opinion also situates CIMT historically through United States ex rel. Guarino v. Uhl (L. Hand, J.), emphasizing a long-standing “necessarily or inherently immoral” approach predating Chevron-era deference.

C. Post-Chevron interpretive methodology and stare decisis

• Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo is used to state that questions of law are for courts to decide with independent judgment, while also stressing that prior Chevron-framework holdings remain governed by statutory stare decisis.
• Garcia Pinach v. BondiLoper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo as automatically unraveling prior circuit precedent.
• The panel notes alignment with sister circuits via Chavez v. Bondi (4th Cir.) and Murillo-Chavez v. Bondi (9th Cir.)—both treating BIA CIMT guidance as persuasive post-Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo without discarding earlier results.

D. Conspiracy/inchoate offenses as CIMTs

• The court applies the Second Circuit’s established rule that for inchoate crimes, CIMT analysis targets the underlying substantive offense, citing Jang v. Garland and Santana-Felix v. Barr.
• It rebuffs a statutory-text argument based on later amendments, relying on Almendarez-Torres v. United States (“later enacted laws … do not declare the meaning of earlier law”).
• To explain why conspiracy is not anomalously excluded, it invokes Callanan v. United States for the proposition that collective criminal agreement can present a greater societal threat.

E. The § 1513 context: administration of justice

• United States v. Brown is used to articulate § 1513’s public purpose—safeguarding the administration of justice and deterring retaliatory threats.
• United States v. Draper is cited for definitional context (who qualifies as a federal “law enforcement officer” under § 1515(a)(4)).

F. Vagueness doctrine

• The constitutional standard is taken from Johnson v. United States (fair notice and avoiding standardless enforcement) and applied to immigration removal provisions through Sessions v. Dimaya.
• The court uses Arriaga v. Mukasey and Kolender v. Lawson for a two-pronged as-applied vagueness inquiry (notice and limits on discretion).
• It applies the “core of the statute’s prohibition” doctrine via United States v. Farhane.
• In addressing the “fraud carve-out” argument, it cites Jordan v. De George and notes petitioner’s reliance on Vasquez v. Garland.

G. Law of the case and related procedural constraints

• The doctrine’s baseline is taken from Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp. and applied through Field v. United States.
• The exceptions framework (intervening law, new evidence, clear error/manifest injustice) is drawn from United States v. Tenzer and Doe v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Soc. Servs..
• The court rejects use of Nasrallah v. Barr as an intervening change, reasoning that the cited jurisdictional bar did not apply on the statutory text even pre-Nasrallah v. Barr.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. The court’s rule: § 1513(b) is a CIMT “even at the minimum conduct”

The heart of the opinion is the categorical conclusion that § 1513(b) qualifies as a CIMT. The court’s reasoning proceeds in three interlocking moves:

1. Identify the minimum conduct: Under Pereida v. Wilkinson and Moncrieffe v. Holder, the analysis presumes the least culpable conduct criminalized. The court accepts that the least act covered by § 1513(b) is threatening tangible property damage.
2. Integrate mens rea with the moral quality of the act: The statute requires both “knowingly” engaging in the conduct and acting “with intent to retaliate” for participation in official proceedings or cooperation with federal law enforcement. The court treats that retaliatory purpose as not merely a mental-state checkbox but as morally constitutive of the offense’s wrongfulness.
3. Characterize the wrong as system-directed: Relying on United States v. Brown, the court frames witness retaliation as an assault on the administration of justice and societal order. Even a threat of property damage becomes “inherently base” because it aims to punish (and thereby deter) participation in legal processes.

B. Rejecting the petitioner’s “mens rea cannot make conduct reprehensible” theory

Dziedziach argued that reprehensibility must be evaluated largely by actus reus alone, warning against crimes being “pushed over the CIMT threshold by mens rea alone.” The court rejects that partitioning as artificial and inconsistent with CIMT doctrine, emphasizing:

• The Second Circuit’s repeated statement that intent is central (“it is in the intent that moral turpitude inheres”).
• BIA decisions do not compel the rigid separation the petitioner proposes; the opinion references Matter of Ahortalejo-Guzman (aggravating factors can indicate “moral depravity” and may include victim-protection rationales) and In re Solon (specific intent can be the differentiator for turpitude).
• Persuasive alignment with other circuits recognizing a sliding relationship between state of mind and harm, citing Moran v. Barr, and a property-destruction CIMT rationale in Da Silva Neto v. Holder.

C. Conspiracy is not exempt from § 1227(a)(2)(A)(i)

The court disposes of an attempted statutory negative-implication argument: because Congress expressly listed conspiracies in inadmissibility provisions, petitioner urged conspiracies must be excluded from the removability CIMT provision. The court responds:

• The statutory text (“convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude”) does not carve out inchoate crimes.
• The later amendment to § 1182 does not rewrite the meaning of § 1227, per Almendarez-Torres v. United States.
• Conceptually, conspiracy can be more socially dangerous, echoing Callanan v. United States.

D. As-applied vagueness fails because § 1513(b) sits within the “core” of CIMT

The opinion treats the vagueness challenge as as-applied and resolves it by focusing on the minimum conduct and the “core” doctrine:

• The court applies the Johnson v. United States / Kolender v. Lawson framework (notice and avoiding standardless enforcement), extended to removal by Sessions v. Dimaya.
• Even though no circuit had yet labeled § 1513(b) a CIMT, the court reasons that retaliatory threats against witnesses/participants plainly fall within long-established CIMT formulations (including the Second Circuit’s pre-Chevron articulation in United States ex rel. Guarino v. Uhl).
• The panel further holds that, at minimum, the offense lies within the “core of the statute’s prohibition” under United States v. Farhane, defeating the as-applied claim even if harder “peripheral cases” might exist.

E. Post-Loper Bright: independent judgment + retention of earlier CIMT doctrine

A notable methodological component is the court’s treatment of Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo. The panel:

• Reaffirms de novo judicial responsibility for statutory meaning, while allowing “due respect” to executive interpretations.
• Maintains that prior CIMT precedents—some of which historically referenced Chevron—remain binding under stare decisis, relying on Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo’s statement that it does not call into question prior cases that relied on Chevron.
• Uses Garcia Pinach v. Bondi to underscore that a panel ordinarily does not treat intervening interpretive-method changes as automatically breaking circuit precedent absent an undermining of the premise of a specific holding.

3.3. Impact

A. Substantive immigration impact: a new categorical CIMT for witness retaliation

The decision’s most direct impact is to establish (within the Second Circuit) that 18 U.S.C. § 1513(b) witness-retaliation offenses—at least as addressed here—are categorically CIMTs for removal purposes under INA § 237(a)(2)(A)(i). Practically, that:

• Strengthens DHS’s ability to sustain removability charges for noncitizens convicted under § 1513(b) (and conspiracy under § 1513(f)) without litigating underlying facts, because the categorical approach turns on elements alone.
• Signals that “administration of justice”–targeting offenses (retaliation, intimidation, obstruction-adjacent conduct) may more readily be deemed CIMTs even when the minimum conduct is “only” property threats.

B. Doctrinal impact: integration of intent into “reprehensibility” analysis

The opinion rejects a bright-line separation of actus reus reprehensibility from mens rea culpability. Future CIMT litigation in the Second Circuit is likely to cite Dziedziach v. Blanche for the proposition that specific retaliatory (or similarly aggravating) intent can transform otherwise borderline conduct into “reprehensible conduct” for CIMT purposes.

C. Post-Loper Bright administrative law impact: “due respect” without deference, but no collapse of settled CIMT results

The court’s treatment of Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo is an important signal to litigants: arguments seeking to reopen CIMT doctrines on the ground that Chevron is gone will face strong stare decisis headwinds. The court positions BIA interpretations as persuasive authority, while preserving existing circuit holdings absent a specific justification to overrule.

D. Vagueness impact: reinforcing “core” analysis for as-applied CIMT challenges

The court’s as-applied vagueness analysis suggests that where an offense plainly attacks the justice system (witness retaliation), the Second Circuit will treat the CIMT label as sufficiently determinate—even if the outer boundaries of “moral turpitude” remain contestable in other contexts.

E. Procedure impact: expanded use of law of the case in successive petitions

The opinion underscores that issues rejected (even in a summary order) may be treated as settled for subsequent stages. The court’s invocation of Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp. and Field v. United States illustrates how successive petitions can be narrowed to only those questions explicitly left open.