United States v. Teganya, 19-1689

997 F.3d 424

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.Jean Leonard TEGANYA, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 19-1689

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

May 17, 2021

Christine DeMaso, Assistant Federal Public Defender, for appellant.

Alexia R. De Vincentis, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before Lynch, Kayatta, and Barron, Circuit Judges.

BARRON, Circuit Judge.

Jean Leonard Teganya ("Teganya") appeals his convictions and sentence for three counts of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1621 and two counts of fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). The convictions are based on his alleged failure to disclose his role in the Rwandan genocide to immigration authorities. We affirm.

I.

The following facts are not in dispute. Teganya was born in Rwanda in 1971 to a Tutsi mother and Hutu father. Because his father was Hutu, Teganya is considered Hutu as well.

In July 1994, while a third-year medical student, Teganya left his home country during the Rwandan genocide, which targeted the country's Tutsi population, for Congo. From Congo, Teganya traveled to Kenya and India before obtaining a fake Zimbabwean passport and flying to Canada in 1999.

Once in Canada, Teganya applied for asylum in that country, but Canadian authorities denied his application, first in 2002 and then, after a series of appeals, finally in 2012. The ground for the denial was that Teganya "would not have survived" in Rwanda in 1994 "if he was not perceived as sharing the common intention to kill Tutsi and moderate Hutu."

On August 3, 2014, Teganya, who had remained in Canada despite having been denied asylum there, crossed the U.S.-Canadian border in Houlton, Maine. He was apprehended by a U.S. Border Patrol agent while he was walking down a road within a few miles of the international border. Teganya told the agent that he had crossed the border illegally and that he was a refugee. He then applied for asylum in the United States.

To apply for asylum, Teganya was required to complete a Form I-589. One of the questions on the form asks:

Have you or your family members ever belonged to or been associated with any organizations or groups in your home country, such as, but not limited to, a political party, student group, labor union, religious organization, military or paramilitary group, civil patrol, guerilla organization, ethnic group, human rights group, or the press or media?

Teganya answered that question "[y]es." The form then asks for a description of the "level of participation, any leadership or other positions held and the length of time you or your family members were involved in each organization or activity." In response, Teganya wrote:

My father was the local President (formerly Kibilira District) of [the Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement ("MRND")] from 1991 to 1994. As a student, I belonged to the Red Cross Youth Section from 1986 to 1991. I was president of the Red Cross Youth Section from 1989 to 1990. I will submit a detailed declaration prior to my asylum hearing.

Teganya did not divulge any political connection with the MRND¹ party of his own.

Form I-589 also asks:

Have you, your spouse or your child(ren) ever ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in causing harm or suffering to any person because of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or belief in a particular political opinion?

That question is relevant to what is known as "the persecutor bar," which prohibits the grant of asylum to an individual who has engaged in persecution against another on account of a statutorily protected ground. See 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(A)(i) (providing that a noncitizen who has "ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion" is ineligible to apply for asylum).

Teganya answered the question "[n]o." He also verbally stated, while under oath in the bond hearing in connection with his asylum application on September 16, 2014, that his father had belonged to the MRND party but that he had not. He further testified at the proceeding that while he was in Rwanda during the genocide he had not witnessed civilians being turned over to the military to be killed and that he had not personally seen any violence being carried out by government authorities or others at the National University Hospital, in which he had worked as a medical student, because the atrocities that were committed there were carried out at night.

On September 27, 2017, Teganya was charged in a five-count indictment in the District of Massachusetts for two counts of fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) ; two counts of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1621(2) ; and one count of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1621(1). The counts under 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 1621(2) alleged that he had failed to disclose in his asylum application that he was personally a member of the MRND party and the Interahamwe, a youth militia wing of the MRND party; and that he had falsely stated in that application that he had never personally ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in causing harm or suffering to another because of that individual's membership in a particular social group. The count under 18 U.S.C. § 1621(1) alleged that he falsely stated at his immigration proceeding, while under oath, that he had never belonged to a political party in Rwanda and that he had not observed atrocities at the National University Hospital while he was in that country during the genocide.

Teganya pleaded not guilty to each count, and his case proceeded to trial, which lasted eighteen days. He testified in his own defense at the trial, which focused on the extent of his involvement with the genocide in Rwanda. The jury nevertheless convicted Teganya on all five counts on April 5, 2019.

At sentencing, the District Court imposed a prison term of 97 months, which was at the high end of the sentencing range that it had calculated for him under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The District Court based that range in part on a two-level enhancement to his base offense level under the Guidelines that the District Court determined applied for obstruction of justice. See U.S. Sent'g Guidelines Manual § 3C1.1 (U.S. Sent'g Comm'n 2018) (imposing the enhancement where a defendant "willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction" and where the "obstructive conduct" was related to either the "offense of conviction and any relevant conduct" or "a closely related offense"). In explaining why that enhancement applied, the District Court pointed to the discrepancies between Teganya's testimony on his own behalf at trial and "the testimony taken as a whole," which it stated that it "believe[d]" and which included "testimony that [Teganya] participated in multiple murders and rapes" and committed atrocities against Tutsis, and that Teganya was an MRND member.

The District Court entered judgment on July 2, 2019. Teganya filed a timely notice of appeal on July 8, 2019. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A)(i). We have jurisdiction over his appeal from his convictions under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and over his appeal from his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 3742(a).

II.

We begin with the challenges that Teganya brings to his convictions in which he argues that they must be vacated due to certain statements that were made at trial by Dr. Phil Clark ("Clark"), who testified for the government as an expert witness regarding the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath. Teganya does not question Clark's qualifications to testify as an expert on those matters. He instead contends that certain discrete statements that Clark made during his testimony concern matters that are not the proper subject of expert testimony under Federal Rules of Evidence 702² and 704(b),³ are inadmissible under Rule 403,⁴ or both.⁵

Teganya contends first that the District Court erred in permitting Clark at certain points in his testimony at trial to comment on the credibility of Teganya's own testimony, because such commentary was not the proper subject of expert testimony under Rules 702 and 704(b). Teganya points specifically to Clark's testimony that it was "quite a common phenomenon during the genocide that many Hutu perpetrators would also at some stage during the genocide have harbored or protected Tutsi friends, Tutsi neighbors, Tutsi family members"; that "it was a common defense of many accused to say I could not have committed these genocide crimes of which I am accused because I was known to be protecting these Tutsi"; and, in response to the question whether he was "familiar with the theory that individuals could not [have engaged in genocidal acts] if they came from mixed ethnicities," that this "was a very common line of defense for genocide suspects."

Because Teganya objected to these portions of Clark's testimony below, our review of the District Court's decision to admit that testimony is for "a manifest abuse of discretion." See United States v. Gordon, 954 F.3d 315, 327 (1st Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Montas, 41 F.3d 775, 783 (1st Cir. 1994) ). We find none.

"An expert's opinion that another witness is lying or telling the truth is ordinarily inadmissible ... because the opinion exceeds the scope of the expert's specialized knowledge and therefore merely informs the jury that it should reach a particular conclusion." United States v. Gonzalez-Maldonado, 115 F.3d 9, 16 (1st Cir. 1997) (quoting United States v. Shay, 57 F.3d 126, 131 (1st Cir. 1995) ). Clark did not purport to be testifying,...