Opinion ID: 4470914
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Investigation-Based Theory

Text: As for the alternative investigation-based theory, Officer Diaz testified that USCIS relies on the naturalization applicant to report his foreign criminal history in the Form N-400 and that disclosure of a prior conviction can lead to further investigation. Officer Diaz said that if Santos had answered “yes” instead of “no” to any of the Form N-400 questions about his criminal history, the adjudications officer would have investigated the nature and disposition of his crime, including asking Santos for documents relating to his criminal proceedings. In other words, Santos’s proper disclosure of his prior arrest, conviction, or one-year sentence in the Dominican Republic for voluntarily killing Jose Martinez Tavarez would have prompted a reasonable USCIS adjudicator to investigate further and that 42 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 43 of 45 investigation predictably would have uncovered one or more legal disqualifications from naturalization. By failing to disclose on his Form N-400 his criminal history and the almost three years he spent in the Dominican Republic, Santos cut off important lines of questioning that would have led a USCIS adjudications officer to investigate his past criminal conduct and lawful permanent residence status. To be sure, Santos presented expert testimony from Braun disputing many of Officer Diaz’s opinions, such as whether a USCIS officer would have considered Santos’s conviction in the Dominican Republic to be a crime involving moral turpitude or would have deemed Santos to have abandoned his lawful permanent resident status by staying in the Dominican Republic under an alias for several years. However, the jury was free to credit Officer Diaz’s testimony over Braun’s testimony on these points.14 See, e.g., United States v. Feliciano, 761 F.3d 1202, 1206 (11th Cir. 2014); United States v. Chastain, 198 F.3d 1338, 1351 (11th Cir. 1999); United States v. Calderon, 127 F.3d 1314, 1325 (11th Cir. 1997). Further, under Maslenjak, the government did not need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Santos’s Dominican conviction qualified as a crime of moral 14 We reject Santos’s argument that the “plain letter language” of Santos’s Dominican records “clearly contradicted” Officer Diaz’s testimony that Santos’s conviction for “excusable homicide” equated to a federal conviction for voluntary manslaughter, which is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude. Santos interprets the hyphen in “Article 295-321” to mean 295 through 321 and thus any of the offenses in those 26 sections. However, Officer Diaz’s interpretation of Santos’s records of conviction—that the hyphen did not mean 295 through 321, but rather 295 and 321, and therefore Santos was convicted of excusable homicide—is a reasonable one, and the jury obviously agreed with her. 43 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 44 of 45 turpitude. Rather, the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a reasonable USCIS officer adjudicating Santos’s Form N-400 Application, knowing about Santos’s Dominican conviction, would have denied the Application. Notably, even Santos’s own expert testified that if an applicant for naturalization failed to provide criminal records clearly showing that the conviction was not disqualifying, the USCIS would deny the application because the burden is on the applicant to establish his eligibility for naturalization. Thus, if Santos had checked “yes” to any of the questions in the criminal history portion of the Form N-400 Application and then produced the Dominican records of conviction at the officer’s request, the officer would have denied Santos’s application because those records, according to Santos’s own expert, were ambiguous and Santos could not establish his eligibility for naturalization. Based on Officer Diaz’s testimony and the other evidence presented at trial, including Santos’s signed Form N-400 Application and his criminal records from the Dominican Republic, the jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that a reasonable USCIS officer, possessing the true facts, either would have denied Santos’s application outright, or would have investigated further and then denied his application, on one or more grounds of ineligibility. See United States v. Friske, 640 F.3d 1288, 1291 (11th Cir. 2011) (“A jury’s verdict cannot be overturned if any reasonable construction of the evidence would have allowed the 44 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 45 of 45 jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” (quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, we conclude the government presented sufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict on Count 1.