United States Ninth Circuit

In an immigration case interpreting the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), petition to review denial of withholding of removal is granted and denial of a CAT claim is remanded where: 1) Jamaica's criminalization of homosexuality with penalty of incarceration compels a conclusion of government acquiescence in the torture of gay men, satisfying CAT, 8 C.F.R. section 1208.18(a)(1); 2) evidence in the record compelled a conclusion that there exists in Jamaica a pattern of persecution of gay men; and 3) the Immigration Judge erroneously relied on irrelevant evidence of a continued relationship with petitioner's Jamaican father and trips back to Jamaica prior to coming out as homosexual to find no likelihood of persecution on return.

Appellate Information

• Argued 03/13/2008
• Decided 09/15/2008
• Published 09/15/2008

Judges

• BETTY B. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:, Before: B. FLETCHER and RICHARD A. PAEZ, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAM W. SCHWARZER, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Matthew H. Adams, Esq., Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, Seattle, WA, for the petitioner.


• For Appellees:
  
• Paul F. Stone, Esq. (argued) and R. Alexander Goring, Esq., U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, D.C., and Ronald E. LeFevre, Department of Homeland Security, San Francisco, CA, for the respondent.