Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/478

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INS v. DOHERTY Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.

Irish Extradition Act, implemented by Ireland in December 1987, constituted new evidence requiring that his claims for withholding of deportation and asylum now be reopened. In June 1988, Attorney General Meese reversed the BIA and ordered respondent deported to the United Kingdom. Respondent’s designation was rejected by the Attorney General on the basis that respondent committed a serious crime in the United Kingdom and therefore to deport respondent to any country other than the United Kingdom to serve his sentence would harm the interests of the United States. The Attorney General remanded respondent’s motion to reopen for consideration by the BIA. The BIA granted respondent’s motion to reopen, concluding that the 1987 Irish Extradition Act was a circumstance that respondent could not have been expected to anticipate, and that the result of his designation would now leave him to be extradited from Ireland to the United Kingdom, where he feared persecution. The BIA’s decision to reopen was appealed by the INS and was reversed by Attorney General Thornburgh who found three independent grounds for denying Doherty’s motion to reopen. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reviewed both the order of Attorney General Meese which denied respondent’s designation of Ireland as the country of deportation and Attorney General Thornburgh’s order denying respondent’s motion to reopen his deportation proceedings. It affirmed the Meese order, but by a divided vote reversed the Thornburgh order. Doherty v. United States Dept. of Justice, INS, 908 F. 2d 1108 (1990). Attorney General Thornburgh had abused his discretion in denying the motion to reopen, according to the Court of Appeals, because he had overturned the BIA’s finding that respondent had produced new material evidence under an incorrect legal standard. The passing of the 1987 Irish Extradition Act in conjunction with Attorney General Meese’s denial of Ireland as Doherty’s country of deportation was