Opinion ID: 763758
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Statements of Wicijewska and Dyblik

Text: 10 Pluta's principal substantive contention is that the district court erred in receiving hearsay evidence as to the citizenship of Wicijewska and Dyblik. He states that 11 [a]t trial the government had the burden of proving that the two women were aliens. There were no witnesses called by the government who had actual knowledge of the women's citizenship. Rather, the only source of that evidence at trial was the women's statements made to third parties and their passports. 12 (Pluta brief on appeal at 19.) He argues that [i]n allowing the government to introduce the hearsay statements of Wicijewska and Dyblik, the district court erred because the government did not establish, as required by Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(4), that the women were unavailable to testify. (Pluta brief on appeal at 19.) We find in this argument no basis for reversal. 13 We begin by noting that the principal premise of Pluta's argument, i.e., that as to the status of Wicijewska and Dyblik as aliens the only source of ... evidence at trial was the women's statements made to third parties and their passports, is squarely contradicted by the record. At trial, Migas testified to his initial June 1991 conversation with Pluta, in which Pluta himself stated that the women were Polish. Migas began: 14 [H]e told me that his friend [sic ] have problem [sic ] concerning their relatives. In one case this was the wife of his friend, and the other case was the niece of his friend. And the problem was that they were--they wanted to enter the United States. 15 (March 24 Tr. 53-54.) Although at this point Pluta's counsel initially interposed a hearsay objection, she quickly withdrew it, recognizing that Pluta's own out-of-court statements offered against him are, by definition, not hearsay, see Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(A) (A statement is not hearsay if it is a party's own statement offered against [that] party). Migas continued his description of Pluta's statements as follows: 16 And so he--he wanted somehow--or asked me if I know any way for them to enter the United States, because they will be in Canada or come into Canada, so the question was how to go about coming from Canada to the United States, being a Polish citizen without the visa to enter to the United States. 17 (March 24 Tr. 54 (emphasis added).) Whether or not Pluta himself had actual, first-hand knowledge of the women's Polish citizenship, his statement to Migas was evidence of that citizenship. 18 Further, the record established beyond cavil that the two Polish women Pluta discussed with Migas were Wicijewska and Dyblik. Migas testified that in that first conversation, Pluta told him one of the women would be arriving by airplane in a few days and asked him to accommodate her at Migas's home until she could enter the United States. In the same conversation, Pluta said the second woman would be arriving later from Toronto. In a subsequent conversation, Pluta gave Migas Wicijewska's name, description, and arrival information, and asked Migas to meet Wicijewska's plane which was coming from Poland. (March 24 Tr. 57-58.) Migas proceeded to meet Wicijewska at the airport, take her home with him, and take her to the American Consulate to apply for a United States visa. Dyblik arrived a day later from Toronto and was met by Migas, Gawlik, and Pluta. When Migas was shown at trial photographs that Backhaus had taken of Wicijewska and Dyblik following their arrests, Migas identified the women in the pictures, without objection, as the women he had met in Montreal, taken into his home, and accompanied across the border into the United States at the behest of Pluta while Pluta transported their luggage. 19 There thus could be no genuine question that the two women smuggled into the United States by Migas in collaboration with Pluta were Wicijewska and Dyblik, whom Pluta himself had described as Polish citizens. 20 Pluta's contention, apparently, is that the district court erred in allowing Backhaus to testify that when he found Wicijewska and Dyblik hiding in the brush and inquired as to their citizenship, the women themselves stated that they were Polish citizens. Rule 804 of the Federal Rules of Evidence provides that statements concerning the declarant's own birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, legitimacy, relationship by blood, adoption, or marriage, ancestry, or other similar fact of personal or family history are not excluded by the hearsay rule if the declarant is unavailable. Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(4)(A). Pluta apparently does not contend that one's citizenship is not such a fact but argues that the government did not show that the women were unavailable. A declarant may be considered unavailable within the meaning of Rule 804, if, inter alia, the proponent of her statement has been unable to procure her attendance by process or other reasonable means. Fed.R.Evid. 804(a)(5). Cf. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 74-75, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980) (witness is unavailable for Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause purposes if the government shows that it made reasonable and good faith, but unsuccessful, efforts prior to trial to locate and produce the witness). 21 In the present case, the government's evidence as to the unavailability of Wicijewska and Dyblik, who by the time of Pluta's trial apparently had been ordered deported but were on parole in the custody of a person in Queens, New York, was thin and somewhat vague. When the issue of unavailability was raised on the second day of trial, March 25, 1992, the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) stated that he had issued subpoenas for the women on March 20, but had not served them because they asked if they could not be served personally, for various reasons.... (Trial Transcript, March 25, 1992 (March 25 Tr.), 9.) The AUSA stated: 22 We made arrangements for them to pick up subpoenas at the United States Marshal Service in Queens, New York, and to obtain travel advances. The ladies did not appear, as we determined yesterday, or late yesterday afternoon, when we left court, and we asked the Marshal Service in Queens to go out and personally serve the women. We have not been able to determine at this time this morning that they have been able to locate them and personally serve them. 23 .... We do not--we have not heard back yet from the Marshal Service whether they have physically located those people to mete [sic ] service upon them. 24 They are not present here today. We have not heard from them. They are not, as we speak now, in the courtroom. .... [A]s it stands right now, the government has done everything it can to secure the presence of those people, but they are not here. They are unavailable. 25 We have issued legal process to obtain their presence and made ever[y] reasonable effort to get them here. We know that they have personal knowledge these subpoenas exist. However, we also at this stage--the information that we have concretely is they have not been personally served with those as of yet. 26 (March 25 Tr. 9-10.) The government's own view that its efforts were reasonable was not, of course, dispositive, and the district judge did not conclusively rule that the efforts described by the government were sufficiently reasonable, as a general matter, to make the women unavailable within the meaning of Rule 804. Instead, he ruled that he would not exclude Backhaus's testimony as to the women's statements of their own names and citizenship in light of the testimony already in evidence as to those facts. 27 We too decline to determine whether the evidence showed a government effort that was reasonable. In accordance with a February 20, 1992 scheduling order, the two-day trial began on Tuesday, March 24. At the start of trial, the AUSA estimated that presentation of the government's case would require only half a day and informed the court that Wicijewska and Dyblik were under subpoena. (March 24 Tr. 4). According to the AUSA's statements the next day, however, the government did not issue the subpoenas until the Friday before trial; it did not serve them at all; and it did not learn that the women had not picked up the subpoenas until after the end of the first day of trial. Whether there was a reasonable explanation for the government's decision to accommodate the women's reported desire not to be served and whether it was reasonable for the government to enter into the reported arrangements on the eve of trial, with no apparent assurance that the witnesses would voluntarily pick up the subpoenas and with no timely alternative arrangements in case they did not, is hardly clear from this record. Nonetheless, in light of Migas's testimony as to the women's identities and Pluta's statements as to their Polish citizenship, testimony that was, without objection, already in the record, the court's admission of Backhaus's hearsay testimony recounting the statements of the women themselves as to their identities and Polish citizenship, if error, was certainly harmless.