Crimes of Moral Turpitude

(E)  Deferred Adjudication.  The BIA has held that deferred adjudication dispositions constitute convictions, even though a direct appeal could be started in the event of a violation of the deferred adjudication program, followed by imposition of a formal judgment and sentence.[133]  These decisions, however, appear to limit their holdings concerning finality to the deferred adjudication context, and they have not been extended to invalidate direct appeal as a means of avoiding finality of conviction.  One circuit court has made a similar finding.[134]

[133] Matter of Punu, 22 I. & N. Dec. 224 (BIA 1998) (en banc).

[134] United States v. Fazande, 487 F.3d 307 (5th Cir. May 18, 2007) (per curiam) (Texas guilty plea resulting in imposition of deferred adjudication probation constituted a "prior conviction" for purposes of sentence enhancement under 18 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A), rejecting claim that it did not constitute a final conviction under Texas law and the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, required the federal criminal court to honor that conclusion, since "the principles that underlie the Full Faith and Credit Act are simply not implicated when a federal court endeavors to determine how a particular state criminal proceeding is to be treated, as a matter of federal law, for the purpose of sentencing the defendant for a distinct and unrelated federal crime.").