## Facts

- Ahmed Ali Hassan and Ana Beatriz Sequen Deleon appeared before a notary authorized to process confidential marriages and a minister authorized to solemnize marriages.
- The minister explained that a confidential marriage required the parties to be living together as husband and wife.
- Hassan and Deleon signed a License and Certificate of Confidential Marriage containing an affidavit to that effect; the notary notarized it and mailed it to the county recorder for recording.
- The prosecution presented evidence that, when the license was signed and submitted for recording, Hassan and Deleon were not living together as spouses.
- Separate from the marriage-license recording, federal agents investigated Hassan in connection with immigration-related submissions; the state charged him with offering allegedly false documents to a federal immigration officer during a federal investigation.
- After a court trial, Hassan was convicted of (1) offering a false or forged instrument for recording (Penal Code § 115(a)) and (2) offering false evidence (Penal Code § 132).
- On appeal, Hassan challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and argued that (a) a marriage license is not an “instrument” under § 115 and (b) § 132 does not reach federal proceedings.

## Issues

1. Whether a License and Certificate of Confidential Marriage is an “instrument” within Penal Code § 115(a) so that knowingly offering it for recording, when materially false, violates the statute.
2. Whether Penal Code § 132 applies to documents offered in a federal immigration investigation conducted by federal officials.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the conviction under Penal Code § 115(a).
- The court held that a marriage license entitled to be recorded has sufficient legal significance to qualify as an “instrument” under § 115(a), and the evidence supported that Hassan offered a materially false confidential marriage license for recording.
- The court reversed the conviction under Penal Code § 132.
- The court held that § 132 is limited to state proceedings and does not apply to documents offered in purely federal investigations.

## Legal Principles

- Penal Code § 115(a) applies to any knowingly false or forged document entitled to be filed, registered, or recorded in a California public office; it is not limited to real-property instruments.
- A marriage license that is designed and required to be recorded is an “instrument” for purposes of Penal Code § 115(a).
- Penal Code § 132 applies to offering forged or fraudulently altered writings in evidence in state “trial[s], proceeding[s], inquir[ies], or investigation[s]” and does not reach federal proceedings.
- When the prosecution’s § 132 theory rests on submissions to federal officials in a federal investigation, the conviction cannot stand under § 132.

## Conclusion

The court sustained the recording-fraud conviction because a confidential marriage license is a recordable instrument under Penal Code § 115(a), but reversed the false-evidence conviction because Penal Code § 132 does not extend to evidence offered in federal immigration investigations.


People v. Hassan, 168 Cal. App. 4th 1306 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008)