Opinion ID: 431955
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Trial Court's Admission of the Anmeldung, the Abmeldung, and the Inimical list

Text: 37 (a) The anmeldung, the abmeldung 38 Koziy contends the court erred in admitting certain documents for various reasons. Koziy contends the anmeldung and the abmeldung lack proper authentication, are forgeries, are irrelevant and immaterial, and are hearsay. The government contends that the district court properly admitted the anmeldung and the abmeldung into evidence. 39 The Federal Rules of Evidence state that the requirement of authentication is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims. Fed.R.Evid. 901(a). A district court's determination that an article of evidence has been properly authenticated will not be overturned unless there is no competent evidence in the record to support it. Bury v. Marietta Dodge, 692 F.2d 1335, 1338 (11th Cir.1982); Meadows and Walker Drilling Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 417 F.2d 378, 382 (5th Cir.1969). The government produced two expert witnesses to authenticate the anmeldung and the abmeldung. The government produced Dr. Raul Hilberg, a renowned expert on the holocaust, and Dr. Cantu, an expert on written documents. Dr. Hilberg testified he had seen other anmeldungs and abmeldungs and that the ones involved in the present dispute were very similar to the ones he had seen. Dr. Cantu testified that the anmeldung and abmeldung were not executed after its purported date. These two witnesses alone produced sufficient evidence to support the district court's authentication of the anmeldung and the abmeldung. 40 The Federal Rules of Evidence, however, add support to the district court's finding that the anmeldung and the abmeldung were properly authenticated. Under Fed.R.Evid. 902(3), a document is self-authenticated if it purports 41 to be executed or attested in his official capacity by a person authorized by the laws of a foreign country to make the execution or attestation, and accompanied by a final certification as to the genuineness of the signature and official position (A) of the executing or attesting person, or (B) of any foreign official whose certificate of genuineness of signature and official position relates to the execution or attestation or is in a chain of certificates of genuineness of signature and official position relating to the execution or attestation. 42 A Russian official authorized to authenticate such documents attested to the anmeldung and the abmeldung. These documents, therefore, were self authenticated under rule 902(3). Since there was competent evidence in the record to support the district court's finding that the anmeldung and the abmeldung were properly authenticated, the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing them into evidence. 43 Whether or not the anmeldung or the abmeldung were forgeries fails to go to their admissibility, but rather to the weight of the evidence. The documents are relevant and material. The documents are not inadmissible hearsay because they come within the ancient document's exception to the hearsay rule. Fed.R.Evid. 803(17). The documents were authenticated, and they have been in existence for twenty years or more. 44 (b) Inimical list 45 The district court admitted into evidence a list the DPC compiled containing all organizations hostile to the United States. Koziy contends that the government failed to show that the OUN was hostile to the United States at the time he applied for a visa, and therefore, the inimical list has no probative value. The Fifth Circuit has consistently held that evidence should be admitted rather than excluded if it has any probative value at all. United States v. Holladay, 566 F.2d 1018, 1020 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 831, 99 S.Ct. 108, 58 L.Ed.2d 125 (1978); Sabatino v. Curtiss National Bank of Miami Springs, 415 F.2d 632, 635-36 (5th Cir.1969), cert. denied 396 U.S. 1057, 90 S.Ct. 750, 24 L.Ed.2d 752 (1970). Doubts must be resolved in favor of admissibility. Holladay, at 1020; Sabatino, at 636. The inimical list had some probative value. The district court therefore properly allowed it into evidence. The amount of probative value the inimical list contains goes to the weight of the evidence, not to its admissibility.