Opinion ID: 3022069
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Substantial Evidence – or Lack Thereof

Text: Judge Ferlise condemned, in the harshest of terms, the testimony of Hussain and Shah: it was “totally incredible,” “totally implausible,” “self-contradictory,” “impeached,” and, were more needed, it “[did] not make any sense.” (App. at 25.) Basing those conclusions on numerous supposed inconsistencies in the testimony, he denied relief. It is clear, however, that the bulk of those inconsistencies – if, indeed, they were inconsistencies – were picayune in nature and that his decision was, at bottom, primarily based on one factual finding – his erroneous conclusion that Shah’s father was in fact alive at the time of the hearing. There can be no dispute as to the importance that he placed on this conclusion: “[T]he fact that [her] father is indeed alive . . . is a very, very important issue in this case.” (App. at 19.) Judge Ferlise concluded that the father is alive based on one sentence of the testimony given by Hussain and the “highly questionable” death certificates offered by Shah. On direct examination, Hussain testified that Shah’s father had been killed, and addressed the circumstances surrounding his death. His testimony as to these facts, although somewhat difficult to follow, was consistent. On cross examination, however, he stated that Shah’s father and mother remain in Pakistan today. Judge Ferlise, understandably, sought to resolve the discrepancy 10 in Hussain’s testimony. Q. Before you were asked sir, what family members the female respondent has back in Pakistan. You said she has her brothers and sisters, said she had her parents there.
Q. You told me her father is dead. A. Later on I said that her father is not active, he’s already dead, but her brother is. Q. Sir, you’re not paying attention. You were asked what family members she presently has in Pakistan. You said her parents, plural, meaning father and mother, and her brothers and sisters. That was not more than five minutes after you told me that her father had been killed. I’d like you to explain that obvious contradiction. A. When a girl is married her in-laws are also her parents and her father is dead but I said that her brother is active. Q. You said that she had her parents and her brother, sir. Now you’re compounding a lie on a lie. I don’t appreciate it. I want to know why you said her parents are presently in Pakistan when you told me her father was dead. A. I’m not telling a lie. I swear, and I, when I said her parents I meant that her in-laws, mother and father in law, and I already said that her father is dead and her brother is there. Q. Well, that’s right, you said her father was dead and then you just started talking abut her parents. Why didn’t you just say her in-laws. Why did you call them her parents. A. This was my mistake. Q. Obviously. (Id. at 102-03). In his decision, Judge Ferlise characterized this testimony as an “extraordinary contradiction” which the witness “tried to explain . . . away by saying that when he said her parents are living in Pakistan, he meant her in-laws.” (Id. at 17.) 11 He stated that he believed the witness “slipped up and . . . divulged to the Court the fact that the respondent’s father is indeed alive . . . .” The only other evidence relied upon by Judge Ferlise to support his conclusion that Shah’s father is alive were the death certificates offered by Shah. Although those certificates (along with many other documents) were excluded because they were not certified, Judge Ferlise nevertheless “perused” them, and found them to be “highly questionable.” (Id. at 18.) He stated: The death certificate at tab J has absolutely nothing included in it as to the cause of death of the respondent’s father. The Court finds that to be extremely unusual and extremely bizarre. The death certificate at L appears to be defective. It is virtually impossible to read the cause of death and the Court cannot conclude from reading these documents why and how the respondent’s father was either killed or died of natural causes. (Id. at 17.) Parenthetically, we note that we do not find it “virtually impossible” to read the cause of death at tab L; indeed, it is rather easy to conclude, with some minimal interpretation, that the father died of cardiac respiratory failure secondary to acute head injury as a result of a firearms injury. Even if there were no other evidence to corroborate the testimony concerning the father’s death, it would be extremely difficult to find that the two considerations relied on by Judge Ferlise constituted substantial evidence in support of his conclusion that the father is alive. With respect to Hussain’s “extraordinary contradiction,” the witness explained his misstatement. Despite Judge Ferlise’s dismissive tone regarding that explanation, the explanation was, in fact, quite reasonable. As for the “questionable” death certificates, we note, as an initial matter, that Judge Ferlise should not have invoked evidence he excluded to undermine Shah’s claims. Certainly, he should not have selectively “perused” the excluded documents, relying on the ones that he felt undermined her claim, and ignoring the 12 many other documents that corroborated it. Moreover, his problem with the death certificates related to an inability to understand the cause of death. He did not appear to question, on the basis of the death certificates, that Shah’s father was dead, and certainly the death certificates do not prove that he is alive. Neither consideration, on its own, would be sufficient to support Judge Ferlise’s conclusion that Shah’s father is alive, and the two together do not “add up to a totality of circumstances that support[]” that conclusion. Dia, 353 F.3d at 251. “Rather, they are an aggregation of empty rationales that devolve into an unsupported finding . . . .” Id. When other evidence, which Judge Ferlise ignored, is considered, it is clear that his conclusion is not just difficult to support, it is entirely unsupportable. Pictures of Shah’s father lying in a pool of blood on the ground where he was shot appeared in newspaper articles about the murder in two newspapers – Dawn (an English-language newspaper) and Masriq (an Urdu-language newspaper), articles admitted into evidence. Judge Ferlise utterly failed to address, or even mention, these articles when discussing why he believed the father is alive. One would have expected that, at the very least, he would have explained his rationale for discounting them if, indeed, there was one. In addition to the newspaper articles, petitioner offered documents corroborating the fact of her father’s death, documents which included a First Information Report for the police detailing the circumstances surrounding his death (with translation); an Extract of Entries of Death Registered with Health Department regarding his death (with translation); and a letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Karachi from the Assistant Commissioner regarding his death. Judge Ferlise excluded these documents because they were not authenticated under §287.6.7 We held in Liu v. Ashcroft, 372 F.3d 529 (3d Cir. 2004), albeit 7 Because the newspaper articles were not official records, they were not excluded with the rest of the documents under § 287.6. 13 after Judge Ferlise ruled on the issue in this case, that § 287.6 “is not an absolute rule of exclusion, and is not the exclusive means of authenticating records before an immigration judge.” Id. at 533. We made it quite clear that the applicants in Liu should have been given an opportunity to prove the authenticity of their documentary evidence through other means. There is no question that here, as in Liu, without providing an opportunity to prove authenticity by other means, Judge Ferlise excluded documents that, if authenticated, would have corroborated the testimony of Shah and Hussain. Because the documents may be offered on remand and their authenticity reconsidered, we need not decide what effect they would or should have had on Judge Ferlise’s decision had they not been excluded. We note, however, that they surely would not have helped him reach the result he reached. The strength of the newspaper articles ignored by Judge Ferlise and the weakness of the evidence cited by him compel the conclusion that Shah’s father is dead, a fact which now the government concedes. As to this “very, very important” fact, “no reasonable person” would have found Shah and Hussain incredible. Chen v. Ashcroft, 376 F.3d 215, 222 (3d Cir. 2004); see 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. at 481 n.1. Stated somewhat differently, this “very, very important” fact is not supported by substantial evidence. Nor are the handful of other inconsistencies invoked by Judge Ferlise to support his adverse credibility determinations supported by substantial evidence; indeed, virtually all of those “inconsistencies” are either too minor to warrant discussion or are not inconsistencies at all.8 We make one observation, 8 We offer but a few examples. Judge Ferlise concluded, as to Hussain, that he changed his testimony as to which agency was responsible for killing Shah’s father, and contradicted himself repeatedly about whether Shah was a member of the MQM. He did neither. As for Shah, Judge Ferlise found an inconsistency because she stated in her asylum application that her father was killed because he was a Mojahir and a Shi’a, but 14 however. Aside from the fact that we are at a loss to see the relevance, much less the significance, of any inconsistency between Shah’s testimony that her father was murdered when he was visiting a friend, who was a doctor, and newspaper accounts that reflect that her father was a patient of the doctor, not a friend, we find it disturbing that the same newspaper articles that Judge Ferlise failed to consider before concluding that Shah’s father is alive were invoked here in an attempt to create an inconsistency for purposes of undermining Shah’s credibility. “Although we don’t expect an Immigration Judge to search for ways to sustain an alien’s testimony, neither do we expect the judge to search for ways to undermine and belittle it.” Zhang v. Gonzales, 405 F.3d 150, 158 (3d Cir. 2005). Nor do we expect a judge to selectively consider evidence, ignoring that evidence that corroborates an alien’s claims and calls into question the conclusion the judge is attempting to reach. Where, as here, an immigration judge turns his back on these expectations and reaches a conclusion that is not “supported by such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind would find adequate,” we will not uphold that conclusion. See Dia, 353 F.3d at 250. We end by noting what we do and do not decide. We find that Shah’s father is dead, now an undisputed fact and one that later claimed it was because of his involvement with the MQM. But there is no inconsistency because the MQM is a political group that represents Shi’a Mohajirs. Judge Ferlise also made findings having no support in the record and ignored evidence in the record when it suited his purposes to do so. With reference to the former, it was sheer speculation to conclude that it was “probable” that “if indeed any harm came to [Shah] or her family it had to do with a rival organization meting out their own form of justice.” (App. at 21-22.) With reference to the latter, the State Department Country Report supposedly contained “nothing” indicating that the police target and kill MQM members or that the government sponsors violence against MQM members. Judge Ferlise was wrong. 15 was virtually undisputable before now. That fact was the foundation on which the applications for relief were built, and Judge Ferlise recognized its critical importance. We leave the effect of that erroneous finding to the BIA on remand and leave to it, as well, the question of whether petitioners, with the father’s death and the witnesses’ credibility established, have satisfied the requisites for the relief they seek. We will grant the petition for review, vacate the order of the BIA and remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We urge that, on remand, a different immigration judge be assigned to any further proceedings. See Sukwanputra v. Gonzales, 434 F.3d at 627, 638 (3d Cir. 2006) (quoting Korytnyuk v. Ashcroft, 396 F.3d 272, 287 n.20 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[W]hile we recognize that assignment of an [IJ] is within the province of the Attorney General, if on remand an IJ’s services are needed, we believe the parties would be far better served by the assignment to those proceedings of a different IJ.”) (alternation in original, internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 16