Nijhawan v. Holder — 557 U.S. 29 (2009) · Supreme Court of the United States · 2009

Role: comparator; posture: immigration removal (civil); noncitizen previously convicted by a jury of conspiring to commit mail, wire and bank fraud and money laundering; IJ, BIA and CA3 held the conviction an INA "aggravated felony" (fraud or deceit with victim loss over $10,000); certiorari on whether the loss threshold is an element of the prior offense (categorical) or a circumstance-specific fact; 1341 is cited only as a fraud statute with no loss element; result: not-decided; claim:

Uncertainty

None recorded

Misfit

1341 is a yardstick in an INA aggravated-felony case (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(M)(i)); `role comparator` cannot name the compared law, and `result` for "the claim under this statute" has no meaning (not-decided used; the Government won the removal question). Known items 1 and 10. Arguably `background`: the statute appears twice in the majority opinion, once in the facts and once in a string cite.

The one proposition about 1341 is negative and structural ("victim loss amount is NOT an element") and is stated for a list of ten federal fraud statutes at once; there is no declared id for loss/damage, so it sits under `property` (whose law-file note says net loss is not required) as a not-reached comparator block. Known item 2.

The prior conviction was for conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 371 with mail fraud as one of four objects, not a substantive 1341 conviction; the notation has no way to mark an inchoate/conspiracy vehicle for the statute.

The actual holdings (circumstance-specific reading of (M)(i); immigration judge may rely on a sentencing stipulation and restitution order under a clear-and-convincing standard; loss must be tied to the counts of conviction) belong to the INA and are not recorded.