United States v. Juan MacIas

I agree with the majority that the district court violated Macias’s Confrontation Clause rights by admitting the Amended Delayed Birth Registration, which contained the Border Patrol agents’ testimonial statements that Macias was born in Mexico. The majority also correctly holds that the district court’s admission of the document where the government failed to call the two attesting Border Patrol agents to testify at Macias’s trial was error. However, the majority incorrectly reviews this error under the plain error standard, concluding that although the error was “plain,” it did not affect…