Opinion ID: 202748
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Minutes from Board Meetings

Text: 35 At trial, the prosecution introduced the Board and Executive Committee meeting minutes under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6), which states that business records are not excluded by the rule against hearsay if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the ... record . . . unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. Appellants do not claim that the minutes themselves were improperly admitted, but rather protest the prosecution's reliance on the absence of certain information from the minutes to prove that the Board was not informed about such matters. Appellants argue that this use violated their rights under the Confrontation Clause and the rule against hearsay. We examine these claims in turn. We review alleged violations of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause de novo. United States v. Rondeau, 430 F.3d 44, 47 (1st Cir.2005). As discussed above, interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence is subject to de novo review, but application of a rule is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Sposito, 106 F.3d at 1046.
36 The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants the right to confront adverse witnesses. The Supreme Court has explained that only testimonial statements cause the declarant to be a `witness' within the meaning of the Confrontation Clause. Davis v. Washington, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 2273, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006)(citing Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004)). 9 Thus, [i]t is the testimonial character of the statement that separates it from other hearsay that, while subject to traditional limitations upon hearsay evidence, is not subject to the Confrontation Clause. Id. Although the Court has yet to articulate a precise definition of testimonial, 10 it is beyond debate that the Board minutes are nontestimonial in character and, consequently, outside the class of statements prohibited by the Confrontation Clause. The Court in Crawford plainly characterized business records as statements that by their nature [are] not testimonial. 541 U.S. at 56, 124 S.Ct. 1354. If business records are nontestimonial, it follows that the absence of information from those records also must be nontestimonial. Thus, the Confrontation Clause presents no bar to reliance on the absence of certain information from the Board meeting minutes to prove that the Board was not given that information.
37 Appellants also complain that, once the minutes were admitted, the prosecution used the absence of certain information from the minutes to demonstrate that Muñoz-Franco and Sánchez-Arán failed to inform the Board of these matters in violation of the rule against hearsay. Appellants argue that the minutes were intended to be a summary, rather than an exhaustive record, of the events that took place at Board meetings, and that, consequently, the minutes do not indicate whether such information was disclosed to the Board. 38 Federal Rule of Evidence 803(7) states that the rule against hearsay does not exclude 39 [e]vidence that a matter is not included in the . . . records . . . kept in accordance with the provisions of [Fed. R.Evid. 803(6)], to prove the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of the matter, if the matter was of a kind of which a . . . record . . . was regularly made and preserved, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness. 40 Fed.R.Evid. 803(7). The Advisory Committee Note to Rule 803(7) also states that the [f]ailure of a record to mention a matter which would ordinarily be mentioned is satisfactory evidence of its nonexistence. 11 Thus, the absence of certain information in minutes admissible under Rule 803(6) would be admissible to show that the Board was not given that information unless the circumstances indicated some reason that these omissions from the record were untrustworthy. 41 We note that Rule 803(6) excludes business records if the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness, Fed.R.Evid. 803(6), while Rule 803(7) excludes records otherwise admissible under Rule 803(6) if the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness, Id. 803(7). We think this repetition indicates that even if a business record is deemed sufficiently trustworthy to be admissible for its contents under Rule 803(6), other circumstances might render omissions in that record untrustworthy to show that the events omitted did not occur. Thus, appellants' concession that the records are admissible under Rule 803(6) does not necessarily preclude them from arguing that omissions from the records are not admissible under Rule 803(7). 42 The government introduced testimony from Enriquez, the vice-president who reported directly to Sánchez-Arán, explaining that the minutes were prepared by one of the executive vice presidents before 1982, by Luis Pastor (an administrative assistant to Muñoz-Franco) from 1982 to 1986, and by Enriquez after that time. Enriquez stated that the records prior to 1982 were prepared and reviewed by the board, they were set forth in a record book and the secretary of the board and the president would sign them. The government submitted an affidavit from Pastor, dated March 21, 2001, verifying that the documents it introduced were, in fact, the minutes from 1982 to 1986 and explaining that the minutes consist of transcriptions made from notes taken by someone who was present at each meeting and that the minutes were kept in the regular course of business of Caguas . . . . [I]t was the regular business practice of Caguas to compile and prepare [the minutes] and to maintain them in its files. 43 Finally, Enriquez explained that, after 1986, [w]hen I was present I would take notes, subject to the agenda and what was approved. When Enriquez was not present, Eliza Balina, the executive secretary for Muñoz-Franco, would take notes at the meetings, and Enriquez would then review the files that were prepared for use by the directors. And upon that review, if there was something I did not understand then I could ask the president. Enriquez noted that the minutes were always ratified at the following board meeting, and that, after ratification, the minutes would be stored either in the president's office or in the bank vault. 44 Appellants emphasize that Lugo (the president of the Board) acknowledged on cross-examination that the minutes were only a summary of the meetings and did not word for word report discussions. However, a review of the Board and Executive Committee minutes reveals that, while not word for word renditions of the meetings, the minutes capture more than a skeletal outline of each meeting and include descriptions of the considerations relevant to each loan rather than simply the fact that the loan was discussed and approved. 12 45 After considering this evidence, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the use of the minutes to demonstrate that the Board did not receive material information about many of the transactions it considered. Enriquez's testimony and Pastor's affidavit demonstrate that the business records were prepared regularly after every meeting, reviewed and ratified by the Board, and stored securely following ratification. These circumstances do not indicate lack of trustworthiness. Indeed, they permit a finding of trustworthiness. Moreover, given the minutes' thorough description of information discussed at the meetings, we conclude that the missing information relating to the loan transactions was a matter . . . of a kind of which a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation was regularly made and preserved. Fed. R.Evid. 803(7). 13