If you are charged with shooting another person, it would most likely be both a felony and a crime of violence. If you believe you acted in self-defense, you would raise that at trial as an affirmative defense. In most jurisdictions, if the judge finds you have established sufficient evidence of self-defense, the prosecutor would be required to disprove self-defense to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury would be instructed that if it does not conclude the prosecution met its burden of disproving self-defense, it must acquit you. If that happens, you would not be guilty of a felony. You would be found not guilty.
On the other hand, if the Judge refused to instruct the jury on self-defense because he or she believed you hadn't presented sufficient evidence of self-defense to make it a jury question, and you were convicted of the shooting, it would be almost certainly be a felony conviction.
Conviction of serious felonies, including but not limited to crimes of violence, are deemed "aggravated felonies." The immigration laws allow for mandatory deportation (now called removal) of any non-citizen convicted of an aggravated felony, even those here legally with green cards.
If you are not a citizen, and are convicted of an aggravated felony, you would first complete your criminal sentence and then the Government likely would institute removal proceedings against you. There are very few defenses to removal proceedings based on the commission of an aggravated felony.
I highly recommend you retain both an experienced criminal defense attorney to advise and represent you in the criminal case, and an immigration attorney who can work with your criminal defense lawyer in attempting to negotiate a resolution with the prosecutor that avoids a conviction for an aggravated offense. If that fails, and you are intent on avoiding removal, you likely will have to proceed to trial and hope the jury accepts your self-defense argument.
-- Jeralyn Merritt
