United States v. Santos Renan Orellana-Blanco

This criminal case requires application of the hearsay rule and the confrontation clause to a law enforcement memorandum of an interview.

Facts

Appellant Santos Orellana-Bianco was convicted after a jury trial of marriage fraud and making a false statement on an immigration document. The theory of the prosecution’s case was that he fraudulently married a woman, Beatrice Boehm, to evade restrictions in the immigration laws, and that he lied in his sworn statement and other papers by stating that he was married to her and lived with her when the marriage was actually a sham.

The government didn’t charge Boehm, Orellana-Blaneo’s putative wife. Instead it used her as its star witness against him. She testified that the marriage was, as charged, a sham, and was intended as such by both of them from the beginning. Orel-lana-Blanco testified that he fully intended to live with Boehm as husband and wife when he married her, did so to the maximum extent that she would allow, and was ultimately frustrated in his attempt to live with her by her leaving him and taking a job elsewhere after cancer surgery made him impotent. At least one of these people was lying, and the jury was not too…