In U.S. v. Maturin, No. 07-10481 (Sept. 11, 2007), the Court held that a more than 15-year old conviction for drug trafficking qualified as an "aggravated felony" and therefore subjected Maturin to a 17-month sentence enhancement for his conviction for illegally reentering the United States after deportation.
The Court held that the plain meaning of the statutory phrase that limited convictions more than 15 years old from qualifying as aggravated felonies referred only to foreign, not domestic, convictions. The Court rejected Maturin’s contrary interpretation.
