Opinion ID: 4470914
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: santos’s form n-400 application

Text: On appeal, Santos argues that the district court erred in admitting the Form N-400 Application with Officer Barrios’s marks in red ink because it was hearsay and not subject to any hearsay exception.5 We refer to the Form N-400 Application with Officer Barrios’s red marks as the “annotated Form N-400” Application. As explained below, the annotated Form N-400 was (1) admissible non-hearsay as an adopted admission of a party-opponent under Federal Rule of Evidence 801, and, (2) alternatively, was properly admitted under the public record hearsay exception in Federal Rule of Evidence 803.
The Federal Rules of Evidence generally prohibit the admission of hearsay statements at trial. Fed. R. Evid. 802. “Hearsay is a statement, other than one made by a declarant while testifying at trial, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” United States v. Rivera, 780 F.3d 1084, 1092 (11th Cir. 2015); see Fed. R. Evid. 801(c). However, Rule 801(d) identifies statements that are “not hearsay” and thus not prohibited by the hearsay rule. Fed. R. Evid. 801(d). Under Rule 5 This Court reviews a district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Wilk, 572 F.3d 1229, 1234 (11th Cir. 2009). “An abuse of discretion occurs if the district court applies an incorrect legal standard or makes findings of fact that are clearly erroneous.” Id. 19 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 20 of 45 801(d)(2)(A), an opposing party’s own out-of-court statements that are offered against him are not hearsay. Id. Likewise, under Rule 801(d)(2)(B), a statement is not hearsay if it is offered against a party and the party manifested that he adopted the statement or believed it to be true. Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(B). To be admissible as an adoptive admission under Rule 801(d)(2)(B), the statement: (1) “must be such that an innocent defendant would normally be induced to respond,” and (2) “there must be sufficient foundational facts from which the jury could infer that the defendant heard, understood, and acquiesced in the statement.” United States v. Joshi, 896 F.2d 1303, 1311-12 (11th Cir. 1990) (quotation marks omitted) (concluding defendant’s nod of the head in response to codefendant’s statement that the defendant was a partner in a drug importation scheme was an adoptive admission). The first criterion is particularly relevant when the defendant is alleged to have acquiesced in another’s statement by his silence. Id.; see, e.g., United States v. Carter, 760 F.2d 1568, 1579-80 (11th Cir. 1985) (involving defendants who remained silent in the back seat of a car while the declarant in the front seat made statements implicating them in a drug smuggling scheme). Where the defendant has responded affirmatively to the statement, however, the focus is on the second criterion. Joshi, 896 F.2d at 1311-12 (explaining that because the defendant was alleged to have responded to the statement by nodding, the first requirement was 20 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 21 of 45 “not at issue here”). Generally, the district court must make a preliminary finding that the government’s evidence is sufficient to meet these criteria. Id. at 1312. However, if the district court failed to make the preliminary finding, this Court may affirm so long as there is sufficient evidence in the record to support a reasonable jury’s finding that the criteria were satisfied. Id. Here, Officer Barrios’s red marks on Santos’s annotated Form N-400 Application are nonhearsay under Rule 801(d)(2)(B) as an adopted statement by an opposing party. The evidence of adoption is much clearer here than in Joshi and Carter, as Santos’s case did not involve either silence or arguably ambiguous conduct from which a jury must reasonably infer the defendant’s knowing acquiescence in the declarant’s statement. Rather, Santos expressly adopted Officer Barrios’s corrections in red ink on the Form N-400 by, at the end of the interview, signing Part 13 of the application, swearing or affirming under penalty of perjury that the annotated Form N-400 with those corrections was “true and correct to the best of [his] knowledge and belief.” Notably, Santos never disputed that his signature appears on the annotated Form N-400 Application and did not raise any objection to the authenticity of that document. Further, Santos was able to read and write in English, as evidenced by his passing the reading and writing test Officer Barrios administered. Nothing in the record suggests Santos did not understand Officer Barrios’s corrections in red 21 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 22 of 45 ink when he signed the Application. Under the circumstances, Santos’s adoption of Officer Barrios’s corrections in red ink is unequivocal. See United States v. Garcia, 452 F.3d 36, 39-40 (1st Cir. 2006) (concluding defendant’s signature on an affidavit swearing that a handwritten statement by an INS officer was “true and correct” and a “full, true, and correct record of the affiant’s interrogation by the INS officer” signaled the defendant’s adoption of the handwritten statement); McQueeney v. Wilmington Trust Co., 779 F.2d 916, 930 (3d Cir. 1985) (concluding plaintiff’s signature on his Seaman’s Service Records, filled out by those who employed him, was an “unequivocal adoption” of the documents’ contents for purposes of Rule 801(d)(2)(B)); United States v. Johnson, 529 F.2d 581, 584 (8th Cir. 1976) (concluding an interview statement written by investigating agent and then read and signed by the defendant was “not hearsay” under Rule 801(d)(2)(B)). A reasonable jury could readily conclude from the government’s evidence that Santos saw, understood, and acquiesced in Officer Barrios’s statements. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the annotated Form N-400 Application as nonhearsay under Rule 801(d)(2)(B).
Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, hearsay is also admissible if it falls into one of the hearsay exceptions. United States v. Baker, 432 F.3d 1189, 1203 22 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 23 of 45 (11th Cir. 2005) (“Hearsay is inadmissible unless the statement is not hearsay as provided by Rule 801(d) or falls into one of the hearsay exceptions.”). As relevant here, a public record or statement of a public office is admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule. Fed. R. Evid. 803(8). In particular, a public record or statement of a public office is admissible if it, inter alia, sets out: (1) “a matter observed while under a legal duty to report, but not including, in a criminal case, a matter observed by law-enforcement personnel,” and (2) the party opposing admission “does not show that the source of information or other circumstances indicate a lack of trustworthiness.” Fed. R. Evid. 803(8)(A)-(B). On appeal, Santos does not contend that he has shown that “the source of information or other circumstances indicate a lack of trustworthiness” under Rule 803(8)(B). Therefore, our analysis addresses only whether the annotated Form N- 400 Application at issue sets out “a matter observed while under a legal duty to report” under Rule 803(8)(A)(ii). This Court has not addressed whether an annotated Form N-400 naturalization application falls within the public records exception to the hearsay rule. We have held, however, that “routinely and mechanically kept [immigration] records” that are maintained in an alien’s A-file may be admitted into evidence under the public records exception. United States v. Agustino-Hernandez, 14 F.3d 42, 43 (11th Cir. 1994) (involving portions of alien’s A-file, including warrants of 23 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 24 of 45 deportation, an order to show cause, and a Form I-194 indicating the alien had previously been warned of the penalties of reentry); see also United States v. Caraballo, 595 F.3d 1214, 1226 (11th Cir. 2010) (involving multiple I-213 Record of Deportable/Inadmissable Alien forms completed by a Customs and Border Patrol agent after interviewing aliens). In concluding that the admission of several Form I-213s did not violate the rules of evidence, the Carballo Court emphasized that: (1) the information recorded on the Form I-213s was “routine biographical information”; (2) the Form I-213s were “routinely completed by Customs and Border Patrol agents in the course of their non-adversarial duties, not in the course of preparation for a criminal prosecution”; (3) the agents collected the information “from all aliens upon entering the United States” and filled out the Form I-213 “for all aliens who are unable to produce documentation showing that they have lawfully entered the United States”; and (4) “the I-213 forms are routinely prepared and became a permanent part of an alien’s A-File.” Id. at 1226.6 6 The first page of Form I-213 covers personal information, including: (1) the alien’s full name, (2) country of citizenship, (3) passport number and country of issue, (4) U.S. address; (5) date, place, time and manner of last entry and the location where passenger boarded; (6) date and place of birth, (7) visa or social security number, and date of issuance; (8) sex, complexion, and color of hair and eyes, (9) height and weight, (10) occupation, (11) scars and marks, (12) FBI number, (13) marital status, (14) details of apprehension, including method, location, date, and time, (15) status at entry and status when found, (16) length of time illegally in the United States, (17) immigration record, (18) criminal record, (19) name, address and nationality of spouse, (20) number and nationality of minor children, (21) name, nationality and address of father and mother, (22) monies due/property in the United States not in the alien’s immediate 24 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 25 of 45 Using similar reasoning, the First Circuit concluded that Immigration Form 445, similar to Form N-400 but used later in the naturalization process, falls within Rule 803(8)’s public records exception. United States v. Phoeun Lang, 672 F.3d 17, 23-25 (1st Cir. 2012). An approved naturalization applicant must complete a Form N-445 after his interview, but before his naturalization ceremony. Id. at 20, 22. Form N-445 asks a series of questions, including whether the applicant has been arrested, charged, or convicted of a crime, to confirm the applicant’s continuing good moral character between the naturalization interview and the naturalization ceremony. Id. at 20. As with the Form N-400 application, a USCIS officer “must verbally verify with the applicant the accuracy of the applicant’s written answers,” making red checkmarks on the form per USCIS’s policy, and the annotated Form N-445 is kept in the applicant’s A-file. Id. at 22. In Lang, before the First Circuit, the defendant argued that the USCIS officer who interviewed him and marked his Form N-445 was a “law enforcement officer” and therefore his annotations fell within the “law enforcement exception” in Rule 803(8), “which precludes admission of public records in criminal cases for matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel.” Id. at 24. The First Circuit assumed, without deciding, that the USCIS officer was a law possession, (23) name and address of current or last U.S. employer, and (24) type of employment, salary, and dates of employment. 25 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 26 of 45 enforcement officer but concluded that the law enforcement exception nonetheless did not apply because the “case concerns the introduction of documents related to an administrative proceeding for purposes of determining qualifications for naturalization,” not a criminal proceeding. Id. As such, the Form N-445 is not created primarily for use in court, but rather for the administration of the agency’s affairs. Id. at 24-25. The First Circuit in Lang also rejected the notion that the Form N-445 was “produced in an ‘adversarial setting’” that would render the USCIS officer’s observations unreliable, instead concluding that “form N-445 is ‘ministerial, nonadversarial information.’” Id. at 25. While acknowledging that “criminal charges can result, if as is the case here, false evidence is elicited on the form,” the First Circuit determined that “criminal charges are not the primary purpose of the administrative proceedings surrounding an application for naturalization.” Id. Here, in light of our own precedent addressing other immigration forms kept in an alien’s A-file and the First Circuit’s persuasive reasoning as to Form N-445, we conclude that Santos’s annotated Form N-400 Application falls within Rule 803(8)’s public records exception to the hearsay rule. Like the Form I-213 in Caraballo and the Form I-194 and warrants of deportation in Agustino-Hernandez, a Form N-400 is part of an alien’s A-file. All applicants for naturalization must participate in an interview under oath with an USCIS adjudicator to be naturalized. 26 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 27 of 45 And, during the naturalization interview, the adjudicator, in accordance with USCIS policy and training, reviews the information in the Form N-400 with the applicant, placing a checkmark next to each confirmed answer and noting any corrections using red ink. At the conclusion of the interview, every applicant must again sign the annotated Form N-400 application in either blue or black ink, certifying under penalty of perjury the accuracy of its contents, including the adjudicator’s notations in red ink.7 In other words, USCIS adjudicators routinely complete N-400 forms during the course of their non-adversarial duties of processing applications for naturalization. While a Form N-400 may be introduced in a criminal prosecution, as Santos’s application was here, that is not the form’s primary purpose. Rather, the primary purpose of the Form N-400 is to aid USCIS in obtaining and verifying the ministerial information the agency needs to administer the naturalization process. Santos argues that completion of the Form N-400 application during the naturalization interview cannot be “routine and mechanical” for purposes of Rule 803(8) because “[e]ach interview differs based upon the individual applicant and 7 Both Officer Diaz and defense expert Braun testified that Officer Barrios annotated Santos’s Form N-400 and had Santos sign the form again in compliance with USCIS’s policy. Santos has never questioned the authenticity of the annotated Form N-400 Application introduced into evidence in his case. 27 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 28 of 45 adjudicator,” which will result in different notations on the form. The fact that each applicant may provide different information to an officer during an interview does not make the process of completing the form non-routine. If that were so, this Court would not have concluded in Caraballo that a Form I-213, which also is completed by an immigration officer based on an interview, is a “routinely and mechanically kept” immigration record for purposes of Rule 803(8). See Caraballo, 595 F.3d at 1226. What matters here is that, in all naturalization interviews, USCIS adjudicators follow the same standard procedure of placing a checkmark in red ink next to each verified answer and noting in red ink any corrections the applicant makes to an answer and then having the applicant sign the application swearing under penalty of perjury that the contents of the Form N-400 with the adjudicator’s corrections in red ink is true and correct. Having determined that Santos’s annotated Form N-400 Application was properly admitted, we turn to Santos’s alternative argument that the form’s admission violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront Officer Barrios.
The Sixth Amendment protects a criminal defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. U.S. Const. amend VI. In Crawford v. Washington, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment prohibits the introduction of out-ofcourt testimonial statements unless the declarant is unavailable to testify, and the 28 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 29 of 45 defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Crawford, 541 U.S. 36, 68, 124 S. Ct. 1354, 1374 (2004). In Crawford, the Supreme Court “declined to define what a ‘testimonial’ statement is” but “observe[d] generally that business records are ‘statements that by their nature were not testimonial.’” Caraballo, 595 F.3d at 1227 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52, 56, 124 S. Ct. at 1354) (citations omitted). The Crawford Court, although unwilling to provide a comprehensive definition, identified the “core class” of testimonial statements to include extrajudicial statements contained in formalized testimonial materials, “such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions,” as well as “statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.” Id. at 51-52, 124 S. Ct. at 1364 (quotation marks omitted). 8 Since Crawford, the Supreme Court has distinguished between nontestimonial and testimonial statements by focusing on “the primary purpose” of the questioning that elicited the out-of-court statement, as follows: Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to 8 This Court reviews “de novo the question of whether hearsay statements are testimonial for purposes of the Confrontation Clause.” United States v. Lamons, 532 F.3d 1251, 1261 n.15 (11th Cir. 2008). 29 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 30 of 45 establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 822, 828, 126 S. Ct. 2266, 2273-74, 2277 (2006) (emphasis added) (concluding that victim’s statements in response to a 911 operator’s questions were nontestimonial because the purpose of the questions was to resolve an ongoing emergency); see also Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 321-24, 129 S. Ct. 2527, 2538-39 (2009) (concluding that a forensic analyst’s sworn certificates given to police showing the results of drug testing were testimonial statements because the sole purpose of the certificates was to provide evidence to be used at trial). In Davis, the Supreme Court further clarified that a nontestimonial statement, “while subject to traditional limitations upon hearsay evidence, is not subject to the Confrontation Clause.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 821, 126 S. Ct. at 2273. In Caraballo, this Court applied the “primary purpose” analysis of Crawford, Davis, and Melendez-Diaz and determined that the biographical information in I- 213 forms was nontestimonial and thus not barred by the Confrontation Clause. 595 F.3d at 1219, 1226-29. The Caraballo Court emphasized that Form I-213 recorded “basic biographical information,” that Customs and Border Patrol agents “routinely requested from every alien entering the United States” during an interview in order to administer immigration laws and policies, and that the form was “primarily used as a record by the INS for the purpose of tracking the entry of 30 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 31 of 45 aliens into the United States.” Id. at 1228-29. The Court explained that “[i]t is of little moment that an incidental or secondary use of the interviews underlying the I- 213 forms actually furthered a prosecution.” Id. at 1229; see also United States v. Cantellano, 430 F.3d 1142, 1145 (11th Cir. 2005) (concluding that a deportation warrant is nontestimonial in nature and not subject to confrontation, because it “is recorded routinely and not in preparation for a criminal trial. It records facts about where, when, and how a deportee left the country”). Likewise, the First Circuit, in Lang, determined that a Form N-445, annotated by an adjudications officer, was nontestimonial and thus not subject to the Confrontation Clause either. 672 F.3d at 22-23. The First Circuit stressed that that the “N-445 form, like all others similarly generated,” was “a non-testimonial public record produced as a matter of administrative routine, for the primary purpose of determining [the applicant’s] eligibility for naturalization.” Id. Here, we conclude that Santos’s annotated Form N-400 Application, like the annotated Form N-445 in Lang, is a “nontestimonial public record produced as a matter of administrative routine” and “for the primary purpose of determining [Santos’s] eligibility for naturalization.” See id. at 22. That is, the circumstances of the naturalization interview objectively indicate that the primary purpose of the interview is to review the Form N-400 with the applicant and verify the applicant’s answers so that a determination can be made as to the applicant’s eligibility for 31 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 32 of 45 naturalization. See Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S. Ct. at 2273-74. Indeed, all naturalization applicants are required complete and sign a Form N-400 Application, attend a naturalization interview, and then USCIS adjudications officers perform the same verification process consistent with USCIS’s protocol in every naturalization interview. USCIS officers are not conducting the interviews because they suspect the applicants of crimes and are not making the red marks on the Form N-400s for later criminal prosecution.9 Because Officer Barrios’s red marks in Santos’s annotated Form N-400 Application are not testimonial, they are not governed by Crawford, and their admission cannot violate the Confrontation Clause. See Davis, 547 U.S. at 821, 126 S. Ct. at 2273 (stating that the Confrontation Clause does not apply to nontestimonial hearsay).10 9 Santos cites United States v. Charles, 722 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2013), but that decision has no application here. In Charles, we concluded that an interpreter’s translation of the defendant’s statements during an interrogation by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent were testimonial, and we noted that the defendant was detained and suspected of a crime. 722 F.3d at 1323-24. Because the interpreter’s statements were testimonial, the defendant had a Sixth Amendment right to confront the interpreter. Id. at 1325. In contrast, there was no interpreter present during Santos’s naturalization interview, and Officer Barrios’s red marks on Santos’s Form N-400 Application reflect Santos’s responses made in English. 10 As a separate and independent basis for affirmance, even assuming arguendo that Officer Barrios’s red marks (making corrections based on Santos’s responses) were testimonial, Santos adopted them as true and correct, which eliminates any Confrontation Clause problem. 32 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 33 of 45