"New York Times" quotes Professor Jayashri Srikantiah, who heads the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and who filed a brief on behalf of Jose Antonio Lopez, the immigrant whose Supreme Court appeal led to the decision, Lopez v. Gonzales, No. 05-547.

Professor Srikantiah said the decision was informed by “a sense of proportionality” and of the “real world consequences” of subjecting legal residents convicted of minor offenses to automatic deportation.