Opinion ID: 4162273
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public Record Exception

Text: The relevant portion of the return of service amounts to an out-of-court statement by Officer Jesus Echevarria to the effect that, “I served Defendant with notice of the hearing on the protection order.” Such a statement is hearsay. Fed. R. 4 In its response to Defendant’s motion in limine, the Government characterized the return of service as “a critical document necessary for the government to meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to an element of the crime of unlawful possession of a firearm by a prohibited person—specifically, that the defendant received actual notice of a hearing.” 5 Defendant does not treat the “actual notice” and “opportunity to participate” sub-elements of § 922(g)(8) separately, but the gist of his argument goes to the “actual notice” sub-element. It is clear from the record that Defendant had an “opportunity to participate” in the hearing within the meaning of § 922(g)(8)(A) if he received notice. See United States v. Young, 458 F.3d 998, 1009 (9th Cir. 2006) (holding that, to prove that a defendant had an “opportunity to participate,” the Government need only show that there was “a proceeding during which the defendant could have objected to the entry of the [protection] order or otherwise engaged with the court as to the merits of the . . . order”). 8 UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG Evid. 801(c). The district court held that the return of service was admissible nonetheless under the public records exception to hearsay in Rule 803(8). Specifically, the district court admitted the return of service under Rule 803(8)(A)(ii), which provides that “[a] record or statement of a public office [is admissible] if . . . it sets out a matter observed while under a legal duty to report, but not including, in a criminal case, a matter observed by law-enforcement personnel.” Defendant argues that the return of service does not “set[] out a matter observed while under a legal duty to report” and that, even if it did, the law enforcement exception should have barred its admission. Those issues are essentially legal in nature, so we review them de novo. Mateo-Mendez, 215 F.3d at 1042. Defendant also argues that he “show[ed] that the source of information or other circumstances” surrounding the return of service “indicate[d] a lack of trustworthiness,” such that the return of service should thus have been excluded under Rule 803(8)(B). That issue is essentially factual in nature, and we review the district court’s ruling for abuse of discretion. Id.
Report We have held that a “legal duty to report” within the meaning of Rule 803(8)(A)(ii) may exist even in the absence of “a statute or regulation [that] expressly imposes duties to observe, report, and keep records.” United States v. Lopez, 762 F.3d 852, 862 (9th Cir. 2014). The pertinent question is whether the creation and maintenance of the record at issue is “appropriate to the function of the” relevant government office, given “the nature of the responsibilities assigned to” that office. Id. For instance, a “verification of removal”—a document “designed to record the physical removal of [an] alien across the border,” id. at 856—is the type of record that UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG 9 the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) would be expected to create and maintain in the course of carrying out its duties. Accordingly, a DHS official is “under a legal duty to report” within the meaning of Rule 803(8)(A)(ii) when preparing such a document. Id. at 862. Here, the tribal court required that Defendant be served with notice of the hearing on the protection order. The return of service was intended to notify the tribal court that service had taken place and, thus, that the hearing on the protection order could proceed. We conclude that the completion of the return of service was “appropriate to the function” of the tribal court system and that, therefore, Officer Echevarria was under a legal duty to report when he completed the return of service.6 We also conclude that the fact that service had been effected was a “matter observed” by Officer Echevarria. See id. at 861–62 (concluding that a DHS official who completed a verification of removal “observed” an alien’s removal from the United States). 6 It is true that Officer Echevarria was a tribal police officer and not an employee of the judiciary. But, insofar as he was instructed to carry out orders of the tribal court—such as serving Defendant with the notice of the hearing—his duties were owed to the court system. Cf. Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 895–96 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (noting the “wellestablished and well-understood common-law tradition that extended absolute immunity to individuals performing functions necessary to the judicial process “); Chabal v. Reagan, 841 F.2d 1216, 1220 (3d Cir. 1988) (noting that “[United States] [M]arshals are officers of the executive branch,” but that “federal courts . . . may direct their actions . . . pursuant to express statutory authority”). 10 UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG
Defendant argues that, even if the return of service is a record that sets out a matter observed while under a legal duty to report, it should not have been admitted under Rule 803(8)(A)(ii) because of the rule’s law enforcement exception. That exception—really, a limitation on the hearsay exception of Rule 803(8)(A)(ii)—provides that a record of “a matter observed by law-enforcement personnel” is not admissible as a public record in a criminal case. As Defendant correctly points out, (1) this is a criminal case, and (2) Officer Echevarria was a law enforcement officer. Given those two facts, the text of the law-enforcement personnel exception would seem to bar admission of the return of service. But the exception is not quite as broad as its wording suggests. “The Federal Rules of Evidence are, like many written laws, organic growths out of our common law,” United States v. Orellana-Blanco, 294 F.3d 1143, 1150 (9th Cir. 2002), and must be construed with that pedigree in mind. Rule 803(8) grew out of the common-law public records exception to hearsay, which “developed to admit the sundry sorts of public documents for which no serious controversy ordinarily arises about their truth.” Id. Considering that history, it would be natural to expect the law enforcement exception to cover only those records whose origins call into question their reliability. Indeed, we have recognized that “the purpose of the law enforcement exception is to ‘exclude observations made by officials at the scene of the crime or apprehension, because observations made in an adversarial setting are less reliable than observations made by public officials in other situations.’” Lopez, 762 F.3d at 861 (quoting United States v. Hernandez-Rojas, 617 F.2d 533, UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG 11 535 (9th Cir. 1980)). But “records of routine, nonadversarial matters made in a nonadversarial setting, reflecting ministerial, objective observations” of law enforcement personnel, Orellana-Blanco, 294 F.3d at 1150 (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted), are admissible in a criminal case, because such records are made under conditions that do not call into question their reliability, United States v. Orozco, 590 F.2d 789, 793–94 (9th Cir. 1979). Consistent with that narrow understanding of the law enforcement exception, we have held that several different types of records reflecting the observations of law enforcement personnel are admissible in criminal cases. See id. (holding that a record made by a customs inspector, stating that a car with a particular license plate had crossed the border at a particular time, was admissible as a public record); see also Hernandez-Rojas, 617 F.2d at 534–35 (holding that a warrant of deportation, which reflected an immigration officer’s observation that an alien had been deported, was admissible as a public record). We now hold that a return of service, such as the one in this case, is admissible as a public record under Rule 803(8)(A)(ii). The return of service recorded the completion of the largely ministerial task of serving Defendant with notice of a hearing.7 The observation reflected in the return 7 Serving a party with process or with notice of a hearing is generally a ministerial task. See Finberg v. Sullivan, 634 F.2d 50, 55 (3d Cir. 1980) (en banc) (noting that “the duties of the . . . sheriff in connection with the postjudgment garnishment procedures consist of issuing the writ of execution and serving it on the garnishee,” duties that “are entirely ministerial”); see also Levy Court v. Ringgold, 30 U.S. 451, 454 (1831) (“[M]arshals of the United States . . . are considered as mere ministerial officers, to execute process when put into their hands, and not made the judges whether such process shall be issued.”). 12 UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG of service—that service had taken place—was an objective one, not the type of “subjective observation[], summar[y], opinion[,] [or] conclusion[] of law enforcement personnel” that Congress intended to exclude from the scope of the public records exception. Orellana-Blanco, 294 F.3d at 1150. Finally, the return of service at issue is similar to a sheriff’s return, which was admissible at common law as a public record. United States v. Union Nacional de Trabajadores, 576 F.2d 388, 390–91 (1st Cir. 1978); see also Lavino v. Jamison, 230 F.2d 909, 911–12 (9th Cir. 1956) (“Sheriff’s returns are documents executed by public officials who normally carry out their duties properly. It is more convenient to place the burden of going forward with the evidence to show that statements in a return are inaccurate on the party so asserting than to require a sheriff to be called away from his duties in every case.”). “There is nothing to indicate that Congress meant to cut back upon the common law rule respecting sheriff’s returns” when it codified the rule in the Federal Rules of Evidence. Union Nacional de Trabajadores, 576 F.2d at 391.8
Defendant’s final rule-related argument is that the district court should have excluded the return of service under Rule 803(8)(B), which bars admission if “the source of information 8 Several state courts, interpreting state rules of evidence that are substantially similar to Rule 803(8), have held that returns of service prepared by law enforcement officers are admissible as public records in criminal cases. See, e.g., Frady v. Frady, 58 P.3d 849, 852 (Or. Ct. App. 2002) (“Because service of the [restraining] order and the reporting of that service were routine, nonadversarial matters, the exclusion from the official records exception for matters observed by police officers is inapplicable.”). UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG 13 or other circumstances indicate a lack of trustworthiness.” Fed. R. Evid. 803(8)(B). Rule 803(8)(B) comes into play only if the party seeking to introduce a record succeeds in convincing a court that the record should be admitted under Rule 803(8)(A). The party opposing admission then bears the burden of showing that the record is untrustworthy. See United States v. Loyola-Dominguez, 125 F.3d 1315, 1318 (9th Cir. 1997) (construing a prior version of Rule 803(8)); see also Fed. R. Evid. 803(8) advisory committee’s note to 2014 amendment (“The Rule has been amended to clarify that if the proponent has established that the record meets the stated requirements of the exception[,] . . . then the burden is on the opponent to show that the source of information or other circumstances indicate a lack of trustworthiness.”). Defendant offers two reasons to doubt the trustworthiness of the return of service. First, the location noted as the place of service on the return does not, according to Defendant, exist. Second, Officer Echevarria, who served the notice, was married to the sister of the woman who had sought the protection order against Defendant. According to Defendant, that relationship gave Officer Echevarria a “vested interest” in effecting service that makes the return of service untrustworthy. The district court expressly considered the first argument and rejected it, finding that the place of service did exist. That finding is not clearly erroneous. Defendant’s lawyer then pointed out for the first time the relationship between Echevarria and Defendant; the court did not alter its ruling on the admissibility of the return of service in light of that new 14 UNITED STATES V. FRYBERG information.9 Given the relatively weak showing of untrustworthiness made by Defendant, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the return of service.10