Opinion ID: 77318
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Cuban Government Document

Text: 39 Hernandez argues that the court erred by admitting in evidence a foreign records certification and report from Cubana Airlines showing that five of the defendants previously had been passengers on the Nueva Gerona/Havana flight, and in particular, that Hernandez and Norneilla-Morales had traveled on the flight a month prior to the hijacking. The exhibit is a typed document in Spanish entitled CER-TIFICO. The document lists the flights the Defendants had taken on Cubana Airlines in 2002 and 2003. It was authenticated at trial by means of an accompanying document entitled CERTIFICACION DE REGISTROS COMERCIALES EXTRANJEROS, or CERTIFICATION OF FOREIGN COMMERCIAL REGISTRIES. The authenticating document was also typewritten, however blanks were filled in by hand by Ana Isis Toboso Moreno, the Revenues Department Head of Cubana Airlines. Ms. Moreno's foreign records certification, pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 902(12), stated that the attached documents were prepared on or about the day that the event transpired, by persons with knowledge and in the ordinary course of business. Ms. Moreno, in certifying it as a business record, stated that Cubana Airlines maintained handwritten records, stored in folders, documenting the passengers on all of its flights. 40 Hernandez argues that the exhibit did not qualify as a summary of Cuban airlines records because the government did not produce the underlying originals or copies of the documents as demanded, and that it was inadmissible because the report had been generated at the request of the government for trial. The government argues that the district court properly admitted the document as a business record in the form of a report or data compilation by Cubana Airlines pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6), not as a summary exhibit of other trial exhibits pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 1006. 41 The relevant rule, 803(6), provides that the following evidence is not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness: 42 A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, 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 memorandum, report, record or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, or by certification that complies with Rule 902(11), Rule 902(12), or a statute permitting certification, unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. The term business as used in this paragraph includes business, institution, association, profession, occupation, and calling of every kind, whether or not conducted for profit. 43 Fed.R.Evid. 803(6). We have held that [t]he touchstone of admissibility under [Rule 803(6)] is reliability, and a trial judge has broad discretion to determine the admissibility of such evidence .... United States v. Bueno-Sierra, 99 F.3d 375, 378-79 (11th Cir.1996). 44 In this case, the district court found that the exhibit in question was a report or data compilation created by Cubana Airlines from the company's own records documenting its passengers, and thus was admissible as a business record. Hernandez argues that because the exhibit in question was prepared for purposes of litigation, it should have been ruled inadmissible. We agree. 45 Rule 803(6) requires that both the underlying records and the report summarizing those records be prepared and maintained for business purposes in the ordinary course of business and not for purposes of litigation. See United States v. Kim, 595 F.2d 755, 760-64 (D.C.Cir. 1979) (holding inadmissible a summary of bank records even assuming the underlying records would be admissible). The government argues that the summary should be admissible because the records regarding the passengers were maintained in the ordinary course of business, citing United States v. Fujii, 301 F.3d 535, 539 (7th Cir.2002) in support. In Fujii, the Seventh Circuit upheld the admission, under Rule 803(6), of Korean Airlines check-in and reservation records and flight manifests printed at the request of the government for use in an alien smuggling trial because such records were compiled in the airlines' ordinary course of business. Those records are distinguishable from the present records, however, because the records in Fujii were electronically stored information and the summary was simply a printout of that information. 46 Here, rather than a simple printout of regularly kept, computerized records, the Government sought to have admitted a typed summary of handwritten business records. This printed summary was prepared solely for trial. Rule 803(6) does not allow for the admission of such a summary. See Kim, 595 F.2d at 760-64. The Federal Rules do provide in Rule 1006 for the admission of a summary of voluminous business records, but only if certain requirements are met. Among these requirements is that other parties to the case must be provided the original records upon which the summary is based—or duplicates of those originals—prior to the admission of the summary. In this case, the government did not provide the defendants with the original handwritten records of the passenger manifests, or any duplicates of those originals, before seeking admission of the summary. We therefore conclude that it was error for the district court to admit this document at trial. 47 Nevertheless, Hernandez has failed to show substantial prejudice because there was sufficient evidence of his guilt even absent the document in question. The conduct of the Defendants aboard the airplane, testified to by multiple witnesses at trial, was sufficient to support a conspiracy even without the erroneously admitted CERTIFICO.