But Assistant U.S. Attorney Beverly McCallum, the prosecutor, filed a motion to preclude improper reference to the Immigration and Nationality Act, any reference to defendant Dongjun Li’s second discovery request, and relief from such request.
In his motion, defense counsel Mark Scoggins said his client “has a constitutional right to a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.”
The defendant, Scoggins added, should be afforded the opportunity to inspect and copy relevant or material portions of the CBP field manual and the related documents as requested.
“An order requiring the government to produce the requested documents will assist Mr. Li in obtaining relevant and material information about his case, and of course this will assist in ensuring his constitutional right to prepare a complete defense.”
McCallum, for her part, argued that the contested discovery request and evidence are “irrelevant to the elements of the charged offense, and immaterial and otherwise outside of the scope of [Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16].”
Dongjun Li, through his counsel, “does not identify any recognized defense that would justify such request,” according to McCallum, referring to the defense’s assertion that the requested “documents are material to preparing his defense.”
McCallum said “it is likely that defendant will seek to try the decision of the U.S. and its Congress to apply the INA to the CNMI.”
She added: “This he will do through confusing argument, and the eliciting of testimony about civil-side terms of art pertaining to the INA. Under these circumstances, defendant’s proposed pretrial consumption of limited governmental resources with ‘discovery’ of irrelevant materials on this score, followed by presentation and discussion at trial of the contested evidence would unfairly prejudice the government, waste time, confuse the issues, and mislead the jury.”
Last July, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Dongjun Li after he presented a fraudulent advance parole document in his attempt to board a plane to Los Angeles, California which he denied.
