Mr. Pullara can assist in vacating or modifying California criminal convictions. He has been hired by individuals all across the United States to try and attack a prior conviction to avoid negative immigration consequences.

There are many different strategies that can be pursued to vacate a judgment or modify the sentence of a prior conviction. The following is a very brief description of some of the ways to attack a prior conviction.

• The Court failed to advise the defendant of the immigration consequences of their conviction prior to guilty or no contest plea.

  Under California Penal Code section 1016.5 a defendant prior to entering a plea of guilty or no contest must be advised that the conviction could result in their deportation, denial of naturalization or denial of reentry. If the defendant was not advised and can show they have been prejudiced then there may be a valid basis to have the conviction vacated the guilty plea withdrawn and a not guilty plea entered. Also, if there is no record of the advisement (for instance if it is an old case which has been destroyed), it is then presumed the immigration advisement was not made.

• The defendant did not receive effective assistance of counsel.

  A criminal defendant has a Constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. This right applies at trial but also in the negotiation of a plea agreement. It may be possible to raise this type of claim if the defendant received incorrect immigration
  advice from their criminal attorney prior to accepting a plea agreement or if the attorney did not attempt to negotiate an immigration neutral plea agreement. An ineffective assistance of counsel claim is normally raised by a Habeas Corpus Petition
  which requires the defendant to be in actual custody, on probation or on parole.

• There was a mistake of fact which if known would have prevented the conviction.

  A defendant may bring a Writ of Coram Nobis to vacate a conviction when there was a mistake of fact that was not know when the defendant was convicted. The mistake of fact cannot go to an issue already litigated and the defendant must use due diligence to discover the mistake. Also, the mistake of fact must be so significant that if it was known, the defendant would not have been convicted.

There are many other ways to declare a prior conviction unconstitutional. It takes investigation, skill, experience and ingenuity to discover the problem(s) with a prior conviction. Mr. Pullara has vacated numerous convictions in Southern California. Many of these cases seemed hopeless until after a thorough review of the court file, confidential documents and police reports revealed the mistake(s) which occurred while the case was originally litigated.