Opinion ID: 1507360
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admissibility of Prior Statements

Text: The basic questions in this case are whether the admission of appellant's sworn statements violated standards of fundamental fairness necessary to the validity of the hearing or violated the procedural regulations here applicable and necessary to assure such fairness. This Circuit has uniformly held such statements to be admissible. [10] We cannot hold that standards of fundamental fairness of the deportation proceedings, which are administrative proceedings not bound by strict common law rules of evidence, are violated when common sense dictates that these statements would have been judicially admissible and accepted as substantive evidence as admissions. [11] Appellant denied under oath at the formal deportation hearing on June 12, 1943 before a Presiding Inspector that he had made a sworn statement before an Immigration Inspector (Busselle) in the Los Angeles Jail, and denied that he entered Mexico in 1939. On the latter point he was questioned and made answers as follows: Q. Where and when did you last enter the United States? A. In 1910  I came to Los Angeles from New York. Q. Were you in Mexico since your entry in 1910 at New York? A. No. I was in San Diego  that's as far as I got. Q. The warrant of arrest states you last entered this country at San Ysidro, California, on Thanksgiving Day, in November 1939. Is that correct? A. No, it isn't. I went to San Diego with my lady friend and stayed there for Thanksgiving and came back that night. The foregoing was a blunt denial of his sworn statement made before Inspector Busselle in Los Angeles Central Jail on March 10, 1943. That statement, in questions and answers, is as follows: Q. When and where did you last enter the United States? A. I last entered the United States at San Ysidro, California on Thanksgiving Day, 1939. Q. For what purpose did you enter the United States? A. To get back home again. Q. At the time of your last entry into the United States were you questioned by a United States Immigration Officer? A. Well, they stopped us on the border and looked in the window of the car and said `where are you from?' I said `New York,' and they waived us on. Confronted with this contradictory testimony which reached to the very heart of the case, the Presiding Inspector ordered the formal deportation hearing continued until he could secure the return of Inspector Busselle who was then on detail in Arizona. Busselle later testified in this hearing concerning the taking of the sworn statement of Schoeps in which the appellant admitted his entry into the United States at San Ysidro in 1939. The prior recorded and sworn statements were clearly against appellant's interest. The modern rule, as we see it, is that a statement (even though unsworn) is admissible as substantive evidence, if the fact asserted in the declaration is so far contrary to the declarant's pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far subjects him to criminal or civil liability, or renders him an object of hatred, ridicule or social disapproval, that a reasonable man would not have made such a statement unless he believed it to be true. See Citizens' Nat. Bank of Los Angeles v. Santa Rita Hotel Co., 9 Cir., 1927, 22 F.2d 524. The common sense reason underlying the rule is that a statement which asserts a fact distinctly against one's interest is unlikely to be deliberately false or heedlessly incorrect, and is thus sanctioned, even though oath and cross examination are wanting. 5 Wigmore, supra, § 1457. See Gin Soon Ging v. Carmichael, 9 Cir., 1941, 123 F.2d 72. In this case appellant's statements were under oath and he was present for cross-examination.