## Facts

- In 2013, Andrey Nikolayevich Kalugin (a noncitizen in the United States on a student visa) met Laura Anne Gallagher (a U.S. citizen) while both attended law school.
- In 2015, Kalugin and Gallagher married.
- After the marriage, they prepared and submitted immigration paperwork seeking lawful permanent resident status for Kalugin based on the marriage.
- In April 2016, the couple moved from California to Virginia.
- The trial evidence indicated that by May 2016 Kalugin had returned to California, despite the marriage continuing on paper.
- Even after Kalugin returned to California, the couple continued pursuing immigration and eventual citizenship benefits for Kalugin based on the marriage.
- The government’s theory was that the marriage effectively ended in 2016, and that the defendants nevertheless kept using the marriage and related representations to obtain immigration and naturalization benefits.
- The defense theory was that the marriage remained real and that, even with geographic separation, the defendants believed they were still in a legitimate marital relationship.
- To support that defense, Kalugin and Gallagher sought to introduce affectionate Facebook messages they exchanged after Kalugin’s return to California.
- The district court excluded the Facebook messages as hearsay.
- A jury convicted both defendants, and they appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the defendants’ convictions for conspiring to fraudulently obtain U.S. citizenship and for making false statements in connection with that effort.
2. Whether a conviction must be vacated when the jury was permitted to convict on a legally invalid theory and returned a general verdict that did not reveal which theory the jury used.
3. Whether the district court erred by excluding the defendants’ Facebook messages as hearsay, and whether that exclusion required vacatur of the affected convictions.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit held the evidence was sufficient to support each defendant’s convictions and rejected their requests for judgments of acquittal.
- The court held that the jury was allowed to consider a legally inadequate theory on one count and, because the verdict did not show whether the jury relied on that invalid theory, that conviction could not stand.
- The court held the district court erred in excluding the Facebook messages as hearsay where the defense offered them to show the nature of the relationship and the defendants’ state of mind (not simply to prove the truth of each statement).
- The court concluded the evidentiary error was not harmless as to the remaining counts because the excluded messages related to the core disputed question of intent and whether the defendants believed their marriage was genuine.
- The Fourth Circuit vacated the convictions and remanded for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Evidence is sufficient to support a conviction if, viewing the trial record in the light most favorable to the government, a rational jury could find the elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
- In reviewing sufficiency after a jury trial, the court considers the evidence the jury actually heard (including evidence admitted at trial even if it should not have been).
- When a general verdict may rest on either a valid legal theory or a legally invalid theory submitted to the jury, the conviction must be vacated unless the record shows the verdict necessarily rested on a valid theory.
- Out-of-court communications are not hearsay when offered to show a speaker’s intent, the character of a relationship, or the effect on the listener, rather than to prove the truth of the matters asserted.
- Erroneously excluding defense evidence can require a new trial when the excluded proof bears on intent and the defense’s main account of events, and the appellate court cannot say the error did not affect the verdict.

## Conclusion

United States v. Gallagher held that, although the government introduced enough evidence for a reasonable jury to convict Gallagher and Kalugin of a scheme to obtain citizenship through a marriage the government claimed had ended, the convictions still had to be vacated because the jury was permitted to convict on a legally invalid theory on one count and because the trial court wrongly kept the jury from hearing Facebook messages offered to show the relationship and the defendants’ good-faith belief in the marriage’s legitimacy.


United States v. Gallagher, 90 F.4th 182 (2024)