Court Opinion

ID: 9891590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-19 00:00:35.266931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:43:27.466913
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-50986     Document: 00516936118         Page: 1    Date Filed: 10/18/2023

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                      United States Court of Appeals
                                                                               Fifth Circuit

                                ____________                                 FILED
                                                                      October 18, 2023
                                  No. 21-50986                          Lyle W. Cayce
                                ____________                                 Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                            Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                      versus

   Nicole Elizabeth Foreman,

                                           Defendant—Appellant.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Western District of Texas
                           USDC No. 4:21-CR-103-2
                  ______________________________

   Before Clement, Elrod, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
   Edith Brown Clement, Circuit Judge:
          Nicole Foreman was convicted of transporting illegal aliens and
   conspiracy to transport illegal aliens. But the government used inadmissible
   evidence to prove that the person being transported was in the United States
   unlawfully. Because this is an element of the substantive offense but not the
   conspiracy charge, we VACATE Foreman’s conviction for transporting
   illegal aliens but AFFIRM Foreman’s conviction for conspiracy to transport
   illegal aliens. Therefore, we REMAND for resentencing.
Case: 21-50986      Document: 00516936118          Page: 2   Date Filed: 10/18/2023

                                    No. 21-50986

                                         I.
          On January 27, 2021, a deputy for the Culberson County Sheriff’s
   Office initiated a traffic stop of a white Pontiac that appeared “to be riding
   low” with one of its license plate lights out. The deputy found nine men, who
   appeared to be of Latin American descent, smashed into the back of the small
   SUV. A man named Ira Cannon was driving the vehicle, and a woman named
   Nicole Foreman was in the passenger seat. The deputy called U.S. Border
   Patrol, which took over the investigation.
          Border Patrol determined that Cannon was the leader of the human-
   smuggling operation, Foreman assisted him, and Foreman’s husband was the
   vehicle’s registered owner. A Border Patrol agent interviewed the nine
   smuggled men and determined they were all Mexican nationals. Border
   Patrol then passed the case to investigators with the U.S. Department of
   Homeland Security.
          DHS investigators interviewed Cannon and Foreman. Foreman
   cooperated, waived her Miranda rights, and allowed officers to search her
   phone. During the interview, Foreman immediately admitted to having
   illegal aliens in her SUV. Explaining her side of the story, Foreman, a married
   woman with kids, told the agents that she agreed to help her boyfriend,
   Cannon, “make a trip” in exchange for some money. But Foreman claimed
   she was unsure how she would make money by “pick[ing] up some people,”
   even though, as an agent explained at trial, that phrase is commonly used as
   code for human smuggling. She also said that she became nervous about
   getting caught once she realized that the people they would be transporting
   were “freaking Mexicans.” Despite these equivocations, Foreman
   ultimately admitted that her cut of the scheme was $7,000 for supplying the
   vehicle and that the money would come from the smuggled aliens’ families.
   Foreman’s texts to her husband also confirm she was “trying to get [them] a

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                                           No. 21-50986

   little bit of money” by helping Cannon and that once she got caught, she
   realized she was “probably about to go to jail.”
           Cannon’s telling was substantially similar to Foreman’s. However, he
   said Foreman had requested to participate in transporting illegal aliens a
   month or two before their arrests. And he testified that Foreman knew from
   the beginning that going to “pick up people” meant going to “transport . . .
   illegal aliens.” In short, according to Cannon, Foreman knew what she was
   doing from the start—smuggling people illegally present in the United States.
           Ultimately, a jury convicted Foreman of transportation of illegal aliens
   for financial gain and conspiracy to transport illegal aliens, violations of 8
   U.S.C. §§ 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii) and (a)(1)(A)(v)(I), respectively. The district
   court sentenced Foreman to forty-six months’ imprisonment on each charge
   to run concurrently.
           During the trial, the government introduced a DHS Investigation
   Form G-166F authored by the Border Patrol agent who conducted the initial
   investigation. While the agent who authored the report did not testify, his
   supervisor, Ramon Saenz, did. Saenz testified that a G-166F was a document
   his agents generated in all alien-smuggling cases and that it included the
   citizenship of all people involved in a case. After laying this foundation, the
   government moved to have the report placed into evidence and a redacted
   version published to the jury. Foreman objected vehemently at trial, arguing
   the introduction of the G-166F into evidence violated the confrontation
   clause of the Sixth Amendment, the hearsay prohibition of the Federal Rules
   of Evidence, and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. 1 The court

           _____________________
           1
              Foreman has abandoned her due process argument on appeal; therefore, it is
   forfeited. Coleman v. United States, 912 F.3d 824, 829 (5th Cir. 2019) (explaining that failure
   to adequately brief an issue on appeal forfeits that argument).

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   admitted the G-166F into evidence over this objection, and eventually
   granted Foreman a “running objection” to the government’s use of the
   document.
          The G-166F was one of only two pieces of evidence that sought to
   prove that the men in Foreman’s vehicle were illegal aliens. The other was
   Saenz’s testimony that he personally knew that the men in Foreman’s SUV
   had been deported to Mexico. The aliens themselves never testified, nor did
   the Border Patrol agents who interviewed them. The government did not
   provide the jury any official documentation concerning the individuals’
   nationalities, such as passports or deportation papers.
                                         II.
          Foreman challenges the district court’s ruling admitting the G-166F
   into evidence based on the Federal Rules of Evidence and the Sixth
   Amendment. We address each argument in turn.
                                         A.
          We review the district court’s hearsay ruling for abuse of discretion.
   United States v. Evans, 892 F.3d 692, 714 (5th Cir. 2018). If we find an error,
   we apply a harmless error analysis. Id. In an evidentiary ruling context, we
   consider whether the error “had a substantial and injurious effect or
   influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Id. (quotation marks and
   citation omitted).
          The Federal Rules of Evidence generally forbid the admission of
   hearsay, i.e., an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the
   matter asserted. Fed. R. Evid. 802; Fed. R. Evid. 801(a), (c); United
   States v. Demmitt, 706 F.3d 665, 671 (5th Cir. 2013). There is an exception to
   the rule against hearsay for business records. Fed. R. Evid. 803(6). The
   government does not seem to dispute that the biographical statements in the

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                                         No. 21-50986

   document, specifically the nationality of the people in Foreman’s SUV, are
   hearsay. Instead, the government argues that Border Patrol uses the G-166F
   form in its ordinary course of business and thus it falls into the business
   record exception to the hearsay rule. The district court agreed with this
   argument, admitting the report as a “business records affidavit of the United
   States Border Patrol.”
          The G-166F in question presents a double hearsay problem. See Fed.
   R. Evid. 805. First, as the government acknowledges, the investigation
   report is not an affidavit nor otherwise sworn to. So, the document has the
   out-of-court statements of the men in Foreman’s vehicle and the G-166F’s
   author, who did not testify. To get around this issue, the government argues
   that, although the report is not “strictly a business record,” it is analogous to
   immigration documents that this court has previously allowed as evidence.
          The government relies on United States v. Noria, 945 F.3d 847 (5th
   Cir. 2019). In Noria, we held that a different form, the I-213 immigration
   form, could be used as evidence in a criminal proceeding because of its
   ministerial nature. Id. at 860. But that holding was based on the public records
   exception to the hearsay rule—a different exception from the business
   records exception and one the government explicitly did not argue before the
   district court. The government therefore forfeited any argument concerning
   the public records exception to the hearsay rule. See Rollins v. Home Depot
   USA, Inc., 8 F.4th 393, 397 (5th Cir. 2021) (“A party forfeits an argument by
   failing to raise it in the first instance in the district court—thus raising it for
   the first time on appeal . . . .”).
          Such an argument would be of questionable validity anyway. The
   advisory committee’s note to the public records exception explains that
   Congress specifically “excluded from the [public records] hearsay exception
   reports containing matters observed by police officers and other law

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                                     No. 21-50986

   enforcement personnel in criminal cases.” Fed. R. Evid. 803(8) advisory
   committee’s note to 1974 enactment; see also id. at note to 1972 proposed
   rules (“Police reports have generally been excluded [from evidence] except
   to the extent to which they incorporate firsthand observations of [a testifying]
   officer”).
          Regarding the government’s argument that the business records
   exception applies, the G-166F is precisely the sort of criminal investigation
   report the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibit. The advisory committee’s
   note to the business records exception says:
          If . . . the supplier of the information does not act in the regular
          course, an essential link is broken; the assurance of accuracy
          does not extend to the information itself, and the fact that it
          may be recorded with scrupulous accuracy is of no avail. An
          illustration is the police report incorporating information
          obtained from a bystander: the officer qualifies as acting in the
          regular course but the informant does not.
   Fed. R. Evid. 803(6) advisory committee’s note to 1972 proposed rule
   (emphasis added).
          At bottom, an alien-smuggling investigation report is not “essentially
   ministerial” as this court found the I-213 to be in Noria. 945 F.3d at 860.
   Instead, it is a criminal investigation report—the sort of document the
   Federal Rules of Evidence, and even the Noria decision itself, explicitly note
   are inadmissible hearsay. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(6) advisory committee’s
   note to 1972 proposed rules; Noria, 945 F.3d at 852–53 (“[T]he Court
   distinguishes between law enforcement reports prepared in a routine, non-
   adversarial setting, and those resulting from the arguably more subjective
   endeavor of investigating a crime and evaluating the results of that
   investigation. The former are admissible, while the latter are not.” (citation
   and quotation marks omitted)).

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                                    No. 21-50986

          We therefore find that the district court abused its discretion by
   admitting the G-166F into evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence.
                                         B.
          Foreman’s Confrontation Clause objection is reviewed “de novo,
   subject to harmless error analysis.” United States v. Duron-Caldera, 737 F.3d
   988, 992 (5th Cir. 2013). To that end, “the government bears the burden of
   defeating a properly raised Confrontation Clause objection by establishing
   that its evidence is nontestimonial.” Id. at 993 (alteration adopted) (citation
   omitted). “A defendant deprived of the right to confront witnesses against
   [her] is entitled to a new trial unless the government proves beyond a
   reasonable doubt that the error was harmless; that is, that there was no
   reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have
   contributed to the conviction.” Id. at 996 (alteration adopted) (quotation
   marks and citation omitted).
          Criminal defendants have the right “to be confronted with the
   witnesses against [them].” U.S. Const. amend. VI. A district court must
   accordingly ensure that a defendant can challenge her accusers “in the
   crucible of cross-examination.” Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 61
   (2004). We ask three questions to determine whether an evidentiary ruling
   violated the Sixth Amendment: “First, did the evidence introduce a
   testimonial statement by a nontestifying witness? Second, was any such
   statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted? Third, was the
   nontestifying witness available to testify, or was the defendant deprived of an
   opportunity to cross-examine him?” United States v. Hamann, 33 F.4th 759,
   767 (5th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted) (emphasis in original). Answering
   “yes” to these three questions establishes a Confrontation Clause violation,
   which requires the vacatur of the conviction unless the government shows
   that the error was harmless. Id. As discussed above in our hearsay analysis,

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   the government concedes the second and third questions. So, we address
   only the parties’ dispute on whether the information in the G-166F was
   testimonial.
          “A statement is testimonial if its primary purpose is to establish or
   prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” Id.
   (quotation marks and citation omitted). Foreman argues that the information
   in the G-166F fits this description. As she points out, G-166Fs are used to
   investigate “alien smuggling,” which is a crime. 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii).
   Indeed, the G-166F identifies Foreman as an “associate” in the “alien
   smuggling case.” Central to the debate between the parties—whether the
   government can prove alienage with a G-166F—Foreman argues that the
   biographical information in the form also fits the criteria of information
   “relevant to [a] later criminal prosecution” and should be seen as testimonial
   information that requires cross-examination pursuant to the Sixth
   Amendment. As Foreman concludes, “[t]here is no ‘biographical
   information’ exception to the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation.”
          The government counters that “limited information about the aliens’
   place of birth in the G-166[F] form was not testimonial” because this court
   allowed such information to enter the evidentiary record through I-213 forms
   in Noria. But for similar reasons to why the G-116F fails to satisfy the business
   records exception, it also fails as an analogy to the I-213 evaluated in Noria.
   In Noria, our court explained that the Form I-213 at issue was nontestimonial
   because its “primary purpose is administrative, not investigative or
   prosecutorial.” 945 F.3d at 857. Here, the Form G-166F is, by its very title,
   investigative. And the Supreme Court has said that statements that
   investigating officers gather during their investigation are testimonial and
   require the right to confrontation. See Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813,
   829–31 (2006).

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           All in all, it is the government’s burden to establish that using the
   challenged investigative report was constitutional. See Duron-Caldera, 737
   F.3d at 993. The government has not met that burden here. Therefore,
   admitting the G-166F into evidence violated Foreman’s Sixth Amendment
   rights. 2
                                                C.
           Because the admission of the G-166F form into evidence violated the
   Federal Rules of Evidence and the Confrontation Clause, we must vacate the
   conviction unless the error was harmless. Evans, 892 F.3d at 714; Duron-
   Caldera, 737 F.3d at 996. To test this, we examine the error’s effects instead
   of merely “ask[ing] whether the evidence remaining after [the] excision of
   the tainted evidence was sufficient to convict the defendant.” Hamann, 33
   F.4th at 771 (quotation marks and citation omitted). The primary
   consideration is whether prosecutors emphasized the tainted evidence to the
   jury and the significance of the evidence to the government’s case. See id. at
   771–72. “If the government relied on the violative testimony in its closing
   argument, we are more likely to conclude that the error was harmful.” Id. at
   771 (citation omitted). But “[i]f the government makes only fleeting
   references to the unconstitutional evidence, we are less likely to find harm.”
   Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). Finally, if the unconstitutional
   evidence speaks to a contested element of the offense, we are more likely to
   find that the defendant suffered harm from the error. Id. at 772.

           _____________________
           2
              In a non-precedential opinion, a panel of this court found that the use of a G-166F
   form to prove a transportation-of-illegal-aliens charge did not violate the Confrontation
   Clause. United States v. Guia-Lopez, No. 22-50234, 2023 WL 5236764 (5th Cir. Aug. 15,
   2023). But in Guia-Lopez, the agent who authored the report testified at trial. Id. at *11.
   And the defendant had failed to challenge the admission of the document during his trial,
   so it was reviewed under a clear error standard. Id. Thus, the Guia-Lopez decision does not
   bear on this appeal.

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                                     No. 21-50986

          As the district court informed the jury, the elements of the crime of
   transporting illegal aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii) are that:
   (1) an alien was in the country illegally; (2) the defendant knew or recklessly
   disregarded the fact that the alien was illegally present in the United States;
   and (3) the defendant transported the alien with the intent to further the
   alien’s unlawful presence. Here, Foreman challenges the government’s use
   of the biographical information in the G-166F to prove the first element.
          Foreman argues that the government’s use of the G-166F in its closing
   argument shows reliance on this evidence, not just fleeting reference. She
   says this evidence harmed her because the jury reasonably used the
   citizenship information therein to conclude that the men in Foreman’s SUV
   were in the United States unlawfully. So, says Foreman, the panel should
   vacate her conviction on the first count of the indictment. For its part, the
   government accepts that it used the investigation report as evidence of illegal
   alienage but contends that it was cumulative of other evidence in the record.
          The government is correct that there is plenty of evidence in the
   record that Foreman believed she was transporting illegal aliens. However,
   this evidence speaks to the second element of the crime—whether she knew
   or recklessly disregarded the fact that the people in her vehicle were illegal
   aliens. There were only two pieces of evidence that the people in Foreman’s
   truck were actually illegal migrants from Mexico: the G-116F and Saenz’s
   statement that he personally knew the government deported those men.
          But Saenz himself did not speak personally to the individuals about
   their alienage. And regardless, the question is not whether Saenz’s personal
   knowledge would have been enough for a jury to conclude that the men in
   Foreman’s SUV were indeed foreigners in the United States unlawfully.
   Hamann, 33 F.4th at 771 (“[W]e do not ask whether the evidence remaining
   after excision of the tainted evidence was sufficient to convict the

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   defendant.” (quotation marks and citation omitted)). Instead, the
   government must show that there was no reasonable possibility that the
   information in the G-116F contributed to the jury’s verdict. See Duron-
   Caldera, 737 F.3d at 996. Here, the G-116F was one of two pieces of evidence
   relied on by the government to prove illegal alienage, a required element of
   the crime of transporting illegal aliens. Accordingly, there is a reasonable
   possibility that the jury relied on the G-116F in its decision to convict
   Foreman. The district court’s decision to allow the G-166F into evidence
   thus caused Foreman harm at trial. We therefore VACATE her conviction
   on the first count in the indictment and REMAND for resentencing.
                                        III.
          Foreman was also convicted of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens.
   To convict someone under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I), the government
   must show that: (1) two or more people directly or indirectly agreed to
   transport an alien within the United States; (2) the defendant knew of the
   unlawful purpose of the agreement; and (3) the defendant joined the
   agreement willfully.
          The government correctly points out that a conspiracy to transport
   illegal aliens only requires an agreement to move migrants in the United
   States illegally, not that the people so moved are actually unlawful migrants.
   So, the government believes that the unconstitutional information found in
   the G-166F is not relevant to the second charge. Foreman acknowledges that
   alienage is not an element of conspiracy to transport illegal migrants. But she
   counters in her reply brief that there is a reasonable possibility that the
   information in the G-116F regarding proof of alienage influenced the jury’s
   verdict when it determined that Foreman entered into “an agreement to
   transport an alien within the United States.” Based on the applicable
   standard of review, she concludes that this is enough to find harmful error.

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                                          No. 21-50986

           We agree with the government. Unconstitutional evidence may be
   harmful in the context of a related conspiracy charge, but only where the
   unconstitutional evidence speaks to a contested element of the conspiracy,
   or where the conspiracy and substantive offense cannot be distinguished.
   Hamann, 33 F.4th at 772–73. Here, the crimes are distinguishable. The
   evidence shows that the two charges stemmed from separate events, with
   Cannon and Foreman conspiring with each other to transport illegal aliens
   up to two months before they attempted the crime. And the evidence of
   alienage contained in the G-166F was not used to demonstrate that Foreman
   and Cannon agreed to transport aliens. For that, the government relied on
   Foreman’s own filmed comments admitting to her agreement, and Cannon’s
   testimony to the same. 3 To sum it up, whether the men in Foreman’s car
   were actually illegal aliens is not relevant to any element in the conspiracy to
   transport illegal aliens charge. We AFFIRM Foreman’s conviction for
   conspiracy.

           _____________________
           3
             Although the parties do not discuss it, the G-166F presented to the jury lists
   Cannon as a “PRINCIPAL” and Foreman as an “ASSOCIATE.” While it is possible that
   a jury could have considered this portion of the report when it determined that Cannon and
   Foreman made an agreement to transport illegal immigrants, Foreman failed to raise this
   issue on appeal, forfeiting the argument. See United States v. Gonzalez, 62 F.4th 954, 960
   n.5 (5th Cir. 2023) (“By failing to adequately raise those arguments on appeal, he forfeited
   them.”).

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