SCOTUS Hearing on False Docs

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...0,184433.story

chicagotribune.com
Supreme Court weighs use of identity theft law against illegal immigrants
By David G. Savage

Washington Bureau

February 26, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing Wednesday to the government's bid to use a strong new identity theft law against illegal immigrants who use fake ID cards.

Last year, federal Immigration agents raided a meatpacking plant in Iowa and arrested 389 workers for having false documents. About two-thirds of them were charged with aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory 2-year prison term.

Lawyers say this charge is used as a bargaining chip. In such cases, immigrant workers—who are often in the country illegally—can avoid prison and a felony conviction if they plead guilty to a lesser charge and agree to be deported without a hearing.

The court took up the case Wednesday of Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican man who had worked at a plant in East Moline, Ill. He said he bought a forged ID card in Chicago that had a Social Security number and his name. He was later reported to Immigration agents, and when caught, he agreed to plead guilty to using false documents and entering the country illegally.

The government also charged him with identity theft because his fake ID card had a real person's Social Security number. Flores-Figueroa disputed the identity-theft charge because he said he did not realize his fake ID had a real person's number.

Congress in 2004 strengthened the law against those who steal a person's identity. The 2-year penalty applies to anyone who "knowingly transfers, possesses or uses ... a means of identification of another person."

During Wednesday's argument, the justices focused on the word "knowingly."

Lawyer Kevin Russell argued Flores-Figueroa was not guilty of that charge because he did not know he had the "identification of another person." Most of the justices sounded as though they agreed.

Should someone get a longer prison term "if it just so happens that the number he picked out of the air belongs to someone else?" asked Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.

The court will hand down a decision by June.

Ahh, Justice Roberts: One of the greatest gifts of Bush to the nation.