PEOPLE v. KIM Part-I
Defendant Hyung Joon Kim was born in South Korea and entered this country legally with his parents when he was a young child. He has lived in this country as a legal resident for more than two decades but never became a citizen. As a result of his multiple criminal convictions, the federal government now seeks to remove him from the country and return him to South Korea. He petitioned for a writ of error coram nobis in the trial court, seeking to vacate the state felony convictions that triggered his federal removal proceedings. His case is one of two we decide today in which litigants seek to challenge the validity of old, otherwise final criminal convictions to eliminate them as a possible basis for removal from this country by federal authorities. As we explain in a companion case (People v. Villa (Mar. 16, 2009, S151561) __ Cal.4th ___), a person in federal immigration detention is ineligible for a writ of habeas corpus from a state court if his state sentence and probation or parole have been completed. In the instant case, we conclude defendant Kim is ineligible for a writ of error coram nobis on the facts of this case. Accordingly, because the Court of Appeal below correctly reversed the trial court's decision to issue the writ, we affirm.
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