United States v. Stephanie Lois Watkins


Case: 16-17371 Date Filed: 01/05/2018 Page: 1 of 13 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 16-17371 ________________________ D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cr-20173-DPG-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus STEPHANIE LOIS WATKINS, a.k.a. Stephanie Harrell, Defendant - Appellant. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ________________________ (January 5, 2018) Case: 16-17371 Date Filed: 01/05/2018 Page: 2 of 13 Before WILSON and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and TITUS ∗, District Judge. PER CURIAM: Stephanie Watkins, a native and citizen of Jamaica—and until her deportation in 2003, a lawful permanent resident of the United States—appeals her conviction for reentering the country illegally following deportation. On appeal, Watkins argues that her indictment should have been dismissed because her deportation order was invalid due to a change in what crimes are considered “crimes involving moral turpitude” (CIMTs) as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). She also argues that her fingerprints should not have been collected post indictment and that the district court improperly allowed testimony from a fingerprint analyst. The government counters that Watkins cannot collaterally attack her deportation order and that there was no error relating to the fingerprint collection or testimony. After a careful review of the briefs and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm. I. Stephanie Lois Watkins became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1992. She has lived in the United States since she arrived here with her family when she was just 10 years old. Her two children and her parents are all ∗ Honorable Roger W. Titus, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation. 2 Case: 16-17371 Date Filed: 01/05/2018 Page: 3 of 13 United States citizens who currently reside here. All of her siblings also work and reside in the United States. In 2003, she was deported back to her home country, Jamaica, for having been convicted of Florida grand theft, Fla. Stat. § 812.014(1), a CIMT. At some point, Watkins returned to the United States. Following a March 2016 traffic stop, Watkins was arrested. The license that Watkins gave to the officer who stopped her had been flagged as suspicious. When the officer warned Watkins that she could be charged with obstruction and other charges if she was lying about her identity, she revealed her real name. After being taken to police headquarters, Watkins admitted to the officers that her license was fraudulent, that she had been deported, and that she had reentered the country illegally. She was subsequently indicted for illegally reentering the country after deportation. Prior to a bench trial, Watkins moved to dismiss the indictment. She argued that because Florida grand theft was no longer a CIMT, her order of deportation was invalid since she had never been convicted of a CIMT, which also meant that she could not be charged with illegally reentering the United States because she should have never been deported in ...

Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals