United States v. Manoucheka Charles

722 F.3d 1319, 2013 WL 3827664, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 15139
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 25, 2013
Docket12-14080
StatusPublished
Cited by86 cases

This text of 722 F.3d 1319 (United States v. Manoucheka Charles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Manoucheka Charles, 722 F.3d 1319, 2013 WL 3827664, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 15139 (11th Cir. 2013).

Opinions

BARKETT, Circuit Judge:

Manoucheka Charles, a Haitian national, appeals from her conviction for knowingly using a fraudulently altered travel document in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). Charles, who speaks Creole and does not speak English, argues that her conviction must be reversed because the only evidence to support the charge that she knowingly used a fraudulently altered travel document was the third-party testi[1321]*1321mony of a Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) officer as to the out-of-court statements made by an interpreter who translated Charles’s Creole language statements into English during the CBP officer’s interrogation of Charles.1 On appeal, Charles argues that the erroneous admission of the CBP officer’s trial testimony of what the interpreter said to him violated her Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Charles arrived at the Miami International Airport from Haiti and presented her travel documents to a CBP officer. These included her Haitian passport, a customs declaration form, and Form 1-512, which provides authorization for persons to travel in and out of the United States while they are in the process of gaining legal immigration status. The first CBP officer, who did not speak Creole, referred Charles to a second CBP officer, who checked the 1-512 document against a computer database and discovered that the name and date-of-birth associated with the 1-512 in the database was not the same as the one on the 1-512 that Charles presented. Charles was then sent to secondary inspection, where she was interrogated by a third CBP officer, who also did not speak Creole, but who used an over-the-phone interpreter service under contract with the Department of Homeland Security to allow him to conduct his interrogation. The interpreter on the phone translated from English to Creole the CBP officer’s questions for Charles as well as translated from Creole to English Charles’s responses to the CBP officer’s questions.

At trial, the government did not call the interpreter to testify. Instead, the government presented the testimony of the three CBP officers to establish what happened at the airport. The third CBP officer, who conducted the interrogation through the interpreter, told the jury what the interpreter told him Charles had said. He testified that the interpreter told him that Charles stated that she did not receive the 1-512 from United States authorities, but that she received the document about a month after she provided her photograph and passport to a man who offered to help her and that she did not pay anything for the document. The officer also testified that when she was asked, through the interpreter, where she was planning to live in the United States, she provided a relative’s address in Key West. When she was asked, through the interpreter, why the address on the 1-512 was different than the Key West address, she said “the form was already given to her completed.” He then testified that Charles also stated, through the interpreter, that “when she sat down [on the plane], she started reading the document and she noticed that the document was illegal because it didn’t fit her profile.”2

Because the government did not call the interpreter as a witness, Charles did not have an opportunity to cross-examine the interpreter regarding what any of Charles’s purported statements meant or what specific words or phrases Charles actually used. For example, when the interpreter supposedly said that Charles told her the document “didn’t fit her profile,” defense counsel had no opportunity to cross-examine the interpreter regarding [1322]*1322whether Charles used those actual words or different words which the interpreter characterized as not “fit[ting] her profile.” Likewise,- when the interpreter said Charles knew the form was “illegal,” there could be no cross-examination about what actual words Charles used and whether the words she used in Creole could have had other meanings than “illegal.”

II. Discussion

On appeal, Charles argues that her Confrontation .Clause rights were violated by the admission of the CBP officer’s-in-court testimony as to the interpreter’s English language out-of-court statements, without the opportunity to cross examine the interpreter. Our review of this argument is for plain error because Charles did not object during her trial to the CBP officer’s testimony as a violation of her rights- under the Confrontation Clause. Under plain error review, we cannot correct an error that was not raised at trial unless: (1) there was error; (2) that was plain; (3) that affected the defendant’s substantial rights; and (4) we determine that it that seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings. See United States v. Arbolaez, 450 F.3d 1283, 1291 (11th Cir.2006) (applying plain error review to a Confrontation Clause violation raised for the first time on appeal). Accordingly, we first must determine whether it was erroneous under the Confrontation Clause to admit the CBP’s officer’s testimony. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (“The first limitation on appellate authority ... is that there indeed be an ‘error.’ ”).

The Confrontation Clause to the Sixth Amendment provides that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const, amend. VI. In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 59, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the Supreme Court explained that under the Confrontation Clause, “[tjestimonial statements of witnesses absent from trial have been admitted only where the declarant is unavailable, and only where the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine” the declarant. (Emphases added). In reiterating the genesis of this understanding of the Confrontation Clause, the Court made several critical observations about the long-standing meaning of this right.

First, the Court in Crawford explained that the Confrontation Clause is concerned with witnesses against the defendant, “in other words, those who ‘bear testimony.’ ” 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (quoting 2 N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)). And testimony itself has a particular meaning, in that it is “a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.” Id. Testimonial statements are ones “that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially[J” Id. The Confrontation Clause, therefore, “reflects an especially acute concern with a specific type of out-of-court statement.” Id. That concern is with testimonial statements made out of court by a declarant whom the defendant has a constitutional right to confront through cross-examination.3

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
722 F.3d 1319, 2013 WL 3827664, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 15139, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-manoucheka-charles-ca11-2013.