## Facts

- Tin Yat Chin was tried in the Eastern District of New York and convicted after a jury trial of one count of impersonating a federal officer (18 U.S.C. § 912) and three counts of tax evasion (26 U.S.C. § 7201).
- The government’s theory was that, from 1997 to 1999, a swindler posed as both an immigration lawyer and an Immigration and Naturalization Service officer and promised Chinese immigrants visas for relatives in exchange for large cash payments.
- The scheme allegedly involved rented premises and an office operation using pseudonyms (including “Qing Zhao” and “Mok Wah”), a secretary to receive cash and documents, and receipts given to victims; no visas were ever produced.
- Chin’s defense centered on mistaken identity: he claimed he was not the person who ran the visa scam and challenged the government’s identification proof.
- To rebut the government’s contention that he was in China in July 1999, Chin sought to introduce signed “customer copies” of credit-card receipts reflecting purchases at two New York stores during that same period.
- Chin argued the receipts supported an alibi because they suggested he was physically in New York when the government placed him abroad.
- The credit cards were jointly held by Chin and his wife; Chin offered evidence tending to show his wife did not make the purchases and that the signatures on the receipts matched his own signature.
- The district court excluded the receipts on the ground they were not authenticated, even though the court found the other admissibility requirements satisfied.
- Chin also offered a language witness who would testify about differences between Cantonese and Mandarin and would further opine that Chin, a native Cantonese speaker, could not convincingly imitate the Mandarin accent attributed to the swindler by government witnesses.
- The district court allowed testimony about linguistic differences and Chin’s native language but barred the witness from offering the ultimate opinion that Chin could not fake the accent.
- Chin appealed, challenging (1) exclusion of the credit-card receipts and (2) the limitation placed on his language testimony.

## Issues

1. Were the defendant’s customer copies of credit-card receipts sufficiently authenticated under Federal Rule of Evidence 901 such that excluding them was error, and if so, was the error harmless?
2. Did the district court abuse its discretion by limiting the defense language witness to general linguistic differences and Chin’s native language, while excluding the opinion that Chin could not convincingly imitate the Mandarin accent attributed to the perpetrator?

## Decision

- The Second Circuit held the credit-card receipts were authenticated under Rule 901 and were admissible for a non-hearsay purpose; excluding them was error.
- The court held the erroneous exclusion was not harmless because the receipts were meaningful support for Chin’s misidentification/alibi defense in a case that depended heavily on witness testimony.
- The court upheld the district court’s decision to limit the language testimony, finding no abuse of discretion in excluding the witness’s ultimate conclusion about Chin’s ability to fake an accent.
- The court vacated Chin’s convictions and remanded for a new trial based on the improper exclusion of the receipts.

## Legal Principles

- Federal Rule of Evidence 901 requires only a prima facie showing that evidence is what its proponent claims; the authentication threshold is not demanding, and circumstantial proof may suffice.
- A document may be authenticated through features such as its contents, appearance, and surrounding circumstances, together with witness testimony linking it to the party or event at issue.
- Records like credit-card receipts may be admissible when offered not for the truth of any human assertion but as circumstantial proof of a person’s location or activity at a given time (a non-hearsay use).
- Improper exclusion of defense evidence warrants reversal when there is a reasonable possibility that the ruling affected the verdict; error is not harmless where excluded evidence directly supports a central defense theory.
- Trial judges have discretion under Rules 702 and 403 to limit specialized testimony to reliable, helpful subjects and to exclude speculative opinions that risk confusing the jury or substituting for the jury’s role.

## Conclusion

United States v. Tin Yat Chin held that the district court erred by excluding defense credit-card receipts offered as alibi evidence because Chin made a sufficient Rule 901 showing that the receipts were what he claimed, and the receipts were admissible for a non-hearsay purpose; the error was not harmless, so the Second Circuit vacated the convictions and remanded for a new trial, while affirming the trial court’s limits on the defense language witness’s proposed opinion about Chin’s ability to imitate an accent.


United States v. Tin Yat Chin, 371 F.3d 31 (2004)