Friday, April 04, 2008

Admitting Certificate of Nonexistence of Record Not Plain Error in Reentry Case

US v. Provencio-Sandoval, No. 07-2119, 4/3/08 - No plain error in admission of Certificate of Nonexistence of Record (CNR) in defendant's trial for illegal reentry, over objection raised for the first time on appeal that admission violated the defendant's right of confrontation, because the alleged error was not "plain", which means "clear under current law"; neither SCOTUS nor the 10th have explicitly ruled on this issue, and every other circuit that has considered it has rejected it. Note that the 10th ducked the question of whether is was actually error, and went straight to the "plain" analysis.