United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 20-1188 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. NELSON ALEXANDER FUENTES-LOPEZ, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE [Hon. Joseph Laplante, U.S. District Judge] Before Lynch, Selya, and Kayatta, Circuit Judges. Christine DeMaso, Assistant Federal Public Defender, for appellant. Seth R. Aframe, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Scott W. Murray, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee. April 12, 2021 SELYA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Nelson Alexander Fuentes-Lopez was convicted, after a jury trial, on a charge of unlawful reentry into the United States. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). On appeal, he mounts two claims of error. Both claims draw a bead on the government's introduction into evidence, under the aegis of Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8), of a particular document — a so-called I-296 form. His first claim of error posits that the document failed to satisfy the "trustworthiness" requirement of the rule. His second claim of error posits that the document, even if duly admitted, was insufficient to prove the "previously removed" element of the statute of conviction, see id. § 1326(a)(1), so his motion for judgment of acquittal should have been granted. Concluding, as we do, that both claims of error are wide of the mark, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND We briefly rehearse the relevant facts. On May 13, 2019, the appellant was a passenger in a car stopped by a New Hampshire state trooper. None of the three men in the car had a driver's license, but all of them carried Guatemalan identification cards. The trooper proceeded to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and transported all of the men to a nearby police station. Federal authorities thereafter charged the appellant with illegal reentry into the United States — a crime committed when an alien, after having been deported, is then found in the United States - 2 - without permission. See id. § 1326(a); see also United States v. García, 452 F.3d 36, 43 (1st Cir. 2006). The appellant maintained his innocence and, at trial, the government sought to introduce into evidence, under the public records exception to the hearsay rule, an I-296 form purportedly signed by the appellant. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(8). The government presented a number of witnesses in an effort to show that the I-296 form satisfied the admissibility requirements of Rule 803(8). We summarize the relevant aspects of that testimony. Outside the presence of the jury, an immigration officer, Ivan Gonzalez, explained the significance of the I-296 form. Specifically, Gonzalez testified that the form has two purposes: to notify the alien that he is being ordered removed from the United States and to verify the alien's removal. The form itself makes it apparent that the top half notifies the alien of the order for his removal and the bottom half verifies the removal itself. Gonzalez also testified that the signature of the ICE officer on the bottom half of the form indicates …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals