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California theft is not aggravated felony theft per the Ninth Circuit's decision in Roberto Lopez Valencia. This is so because California's definition of theft at PC 484 encompasses more than the federal generic definition of theft and it is not divisible into separate crimes that do meet the federal definition.

Unlike the federal definition, California PC 484 applies to more than taking property without consent and with the intent to deprive the owner of the rights of ownership. PC 484 also covers theft of labor, false credit reporting, and theft by false pretenses. The Ninth Circuit has long recognized this, so it has permitted review of documents from the conviction record to determine if there is a match to the federal definition.

Lopez Valencia held that this was no longer permissible under the Supreme Court's decision in Descamps and the Ninth Circuit's subsequent decision in Rendon. Descamps held that a court may only review documents from the record of conviction to determine whether a conviction meets a federal definition if a statute of conviction contains multiple alternative elements, such that the statute really lists multiple different crimes. A statute is not divisible if it encompasses multiple alternative means of committing the same crime. How to distinguish between elements and means? Rendon held that elements require juror agreement, while means don't.

Under California law larceny, embezzlement, theft by false pretenses, false credit reporting, and theft of labor are all means of committing the unitary crime of theft. They are not separate alternative crimes. How do we know? Because the California Supreme Court has held that a prosecutor need not convincing a jury to agree on which type of theft a defendant committed in order to secure a conviction. The California law was written that way to make it easier for prosecutors to convict thieves. However, it also means that California theft can never meet the federal aggravated felony definition.

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When is a penal statute "divisible" and thus susceptible to review of an individual's record of conviction for purposes of determining deportability? The Supreme Court held in Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013) that a statute is divisible if it contains an element that may be satisfied by any one of multiple alternatives enumerated in the statute, at least one of which meets a federal generic definition and at least one of which does not. That decision, however, does not answer whether to be divisible a judge or jury must unanimously agree on which of the alternatives was committed in a specific case. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch took jurisdiction over cases of Martin Chairez-Castrejon and Vera Sama to weigh in on that question.

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