United States Ninth Circuit

An order excluding the former trial testimony of a now-deported witness in defendant's retrial on drug-related charges is affirmed as: 1) adopting the First Circuit's approach to the issue, while the government acted in good faith, it did not use reasonable means to procure the witness's attendance at defendant's retrial; and 2) thus, the government did not establish that the witness was unavailable under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(a).

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/15/2007
• Decided 08/16/2007
• Published 08/16/2007

Judges

• Before RONALD M. GOULD and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges, and ALFRED V. COVELLO, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Dana R. Wagner (argued and on the brief), Assistant United States Attorney, and Kevin V. Ryan, United States Attorney, Barbara J. Valliere, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Section, and James T. Chou, Assistant United States Attorney, San Francisco, CA, (on the brief) for plaintiff-appellant United States of America.


• For Appellees:
  
• Josh A. Cohen (argued and on the brief), Assistant Federal Public Defender, and Barry J. Portman (on the brief), Federal Public Defender, San Francisco, CA, for defendant-appellee Yacov Yida.