Case: 19-10845 Date Filed: 12/06/2019 Page: 1 of 8 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 19-10845 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ D.C. Docket No. 3:18-cr-00132-WKW-WC-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus PABLO ANTONIO PANTALEON-AVILES, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama ________________________ (December 6, 2019) Before JILL PRYOR, TJOFLAT, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges. Case: 19-10845 Date Filed: 12/06/2019 Page: 2 of 8 PER CURIAM: Defendant Pablo Pantaleon-Aviles appeals his conviction and his above- guidelines 300-day sentence for illegal re-entry into the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). No reversible error has been shown; we affirm. I. To obtain a conviction for illegal re-entry by an alien, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant (1) is an alien, (2) had been deported previously, (3) was found in the United States voluntarily, and (4) had no permission to re-enter. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). That Defendant -- a native and citizen of Mexico -- is an alien who was found in the United States without having sought or received permission to re-enter is undisputed. The chief issue at trial was whether Defendant had in fact been removed physically from the United States after Defendant was ordered removed in 2002. At trial, the government introduced into evidence documents from Defendant’s Alien File, including a Form I-205 Warrant of Removal/Deportation dated April 2002 (“2002 Warrant”). The 2002 Warrant identified Defendant as the person to be removed from the United States and was signed by two officials with 2 Case: 19-10845 Date Filed: 12/06/2019 Page: 3 of 8 the former United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”). One INS official purported to have witnessed Defendant’s actual physical departure from El Paso, Texas to Mexico on 11 April 2002; the other INS official “verified” Defendant’s departure. At trial, a deportation officer with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) testified that a warrant of removal must be completed by an officer who witnesses personally the person leave the United States and, thus, serves as confirmation that the person was in fact removed from the country. The testifying ICE officer, however, did not witness personally Defendant’s departure from the United States in 2002. On appeal, Defendant first contends that the introduction of the 2002 Warrant violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. We reject this argument as foreclosed by this Court’s binding precedent. See United States v. Cantellano, 430 F.3d 1142, 1145-46 (11th Cir. 2005) (concluding that a warrant of deportation is non-testimonial and, thus, is not subject to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment). Defendant next challenges the sufficiency of the evidence proving that Defendant was actually removed physically from the United States in 2002. We review de novo the sufficiency of evidence to support a conviction. United States v. Dixon, 901 F.3d 1322, 1335 (11th Cir. 2018). In determining the sufficiency of 3 Case: 19-10845 Date Filed: 12/06/2019 Page: 4 of 8 ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals