Jeremy Warren and Katie Jenkins teamed up to win a hard-fought federal jury trial this week. Our client was charged with two felonies: illegal reentry by a deported alien (8 U.S.C. 1326) and illegal entry after a prior conviction for illegal entry (8 U.S.C. 1325).
The evidence against him included a Mexican birth certificate, his admission in an immigration document that he was born in Mexico and was a Mexican citizen, numerous deportations, his recent guilty plea to a false statement that he was a United States Citizen in trying to enter the United States, and his arrest at the border fence a few months ago attempting to sneak into the United States in the middle of the night. He also had a prior conviction for illegal reentry in which he received a 67-month sentence.
At trial, we argued our client actually was a United States Citizen born in Los Angeles. In support, we located two of our client's uncles living in Texas. They testified that they were in Los Angeles in 1970 when our client was born. They saw his mother nearly every day during her pregnancy, that she never made it to the hospital before giving birth, and they saw the baby at home the next day.
We argued the uncles’ testimony created a reasonable doubt that our client was born in Los Angeles. If so, he was a citizen at birth and could not be guilty of any illegal entry offense. The jury agreed and found him not guilty on both counts.
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