Opinion ID: 1507360
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Admission of the Physician's Report

Text: The foregoing comments on the admissibility of the sworn written statements bear directly on the issue presented by the admission of the routine report of Dr. DeRiver the Los Angeles Prison Psychiatrist. Appellant contends that the admission of this physician's report was prejudicial error. We cannot agree with this contention. The warrant of deportation in this case was not rested upon proof of the 1943 Los Angeles sex offense against a three year old girl. The final determination, and the one which is decisive of appellant's rights, is recited in the warrant of deportation. The essential and controlling part reads as follows: Whereas, after due hearing before an authorized immigrant inspector, and upon the basis thereof, an order has been duly made that the alien Jacob Schoeps or Jack Schoeps who entered the United States at San Ysidro, Calif., on Thanksgiving Day of 1939, is subject to deportation under the following provisions of the laws of the United States to wit: The Act of Feb. 5, 1917, in that he admits having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude prior to entry into the United States, to wit: He being over the age of 18 years, indulged in indecent and immoral practices with the sexual parts or organs of a child under the age of 10 years. (Emphasis supplied.) From the foregoing warrant of deportation it clearly appears that the sole and only basis for appellant's deportation is his admission of the commission of a felony (in New York) involving moral turpitude (at a time) prior to entry into the United States. This entry was, of course, the entry in 1939. In the vital and end result we have noted, the effect of the DeRiver report is demonstrated to be harmless. We, therefore, need not decide whether the report should have been excluded as hearsay. However, we note that Dr. DeRiver testified at the hearing and was cross-examined by appellant's counsel. Further, his report was properly qualified by him as being an official routine report made in the performance of required official duties. Congress has apparently not seen fit to legislate on the question of the so-called physician-patient privilege and for the reasons above stated we do not follow the suggestion that it is here applicable since we do not believe that it bears on the question of fairness of the administrative hearing given appellant [13] or the ultimate and controlling reason for his deportation. It is our view and we hold that admission of the records above referred to did not deprive this administrative hearing of fundamental fairness.