Keith Brown found he was being deported to his native Jamaica in 2013 due to a 1991 conviction, so he filed an appeal.
TRENTON -- A Trenton man convicted of two marijuana dealing charges in 1991 lost an appeal on the matter Wednesday, stemming from a 2013 effort to stop his deportation to Jamaica.
Keith Brown found out that he was being deported to his native Jamaica in 2013 due to the 1991 conviction, so he filed for post-conviction relief in Mercer County Superior Court, where his case was initially heard.
"If I had fully appreciated how the 1991 conviction might one day lead to my deportation, I would have never entered a plea," Brown said in the 2013 filing, according to the Wednesday decision.
Because the case was 22 years old at the time, the transcripts of the plea and sentencing hearings were unavailable, the appeals court said.
However, the plea form which Brown signed in 1991 answered "yes" to the question: "Do you understand that if you are not a United States citizen or national, you may be deported by virtue of your plea of guilty?"
The appeals court ruled Tuesday that case law in 1991 found answering yes to that question was sufficient for the Mercer County court to deny an evidentiary hearing, which the Mercer court did in 2014.
Years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that defense attorneys have a professional obligation to provide their clients with additional immigration-related information, the appeals case said.
However, Brown only argued in the current appeal that he should have been given a hearing, and not other issues surrounding his legal representation at the time, the decision states.
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Moreover, the Mercer court in gave Brown "the benefit of the doubt" in determining that his 2013 petition for relief would not be dismissed automatically due to it being filed so late.
In the original case, Brown, who also used the name Byron Miller, was sentenced to three years probation and a year in the county jail. In 1992, he violated probation and served four years in the state prison system, the decision says.
The appeals decision does not say if the federal government ever deported Brown.
A message left with his appeals lawyer was not immediately retuned Wednesday.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.