Evening star., 1944-12-19
Letters to The Star
Contends Supreme Court Did Not
validate Nevada Divorces


You have propagated an error with
respect to the status of Nevada divorces
in your editorial on Tangled Divorce
Laws" The Williams case in the Su-
preme Court did not as you state and as
it is In fact generally assumed, give the
green light to Nevada divorces. What
it did say was that if the spouse who left
the matrimonial domicile did in fact get
genuine domicile in Nevada. then the
Nevada divorce being good there. must
be recognized elsewhere, even at the
matrimonial domicile, and even though
the fleeing spouse had no just cause to
separate from the one who remained
behind. In that case, as you say, there
was no genuine domicile obtained in
Nevada; the parties stayed at tourist
camp and when they got their DEGREES
they were at once married and at once
return to North Carolina, where they
fiaunted their supposed new status in
the face of their home State, which they
at all times evidently had continued to
regard as their home.
Assumption Of Domicile.
What needs explanation and has
been misunderstood is the statement by
Mr.. Justice Douglas in the decision
that: I'VE must assume that the petit
TONERS had bona fide domicile in
Nevada, not that the Nevada domicile
was a sham" This is what you quote,
and one hastily might conclude that
Nevada therefore could decide for itself
validly as against the absent spouse that
the fleeing one had become truly Ne
vadan, however fraudulent and trans
parent the pretense of domicile might
be; and this impression is heightened by
the manner in which the dissenting
opinions, particularly that of Mr.. Justice
Jackson, dwelt upon the obvious lack of
genuine domicile in that case. But
that is not what Mr.. Justice Douglas
meant. The reason why he felt that
the court must assume genuine
domicile in Nevada was that on the
trail of those two persons in North
Carolina (Which was criminal pro-
ceeding) they had been convicted un-
der instructions from the trial judge
which would allow the jury to convict
them OF bigamous cohabitation, even if
they had acquired genuine domicile in
Nevada, provided they had left their
respective spouses without just cause.
That was the doctrine of Haddock VS..
Haddock, which the court denounced
and overruled in the Williams case.
Since there was theoretical possibility
that, under the instructions given to
them, the jury might have convicted
them even if their divorces were valid
in Nevada because based on true domi-
cile there, the court reversed their North
Carolina convictions and the case went
back to North Carolina for a new trial
under proper instructions, and I under
stand that they since have been tried
again and convicted again, but this time
under instructions which left out the
Haddock doctrine and required the jury
to find that their Nevada residence was
sham and therefore their Nevada
divorces invalid, and therefore their
living together in North Carolina
bigamous. The Supreme Court felt that
persons convicted Of crime must be given
the benefit of every doubt and that it
must therefore assume that the convic-
tion was based on the Haddock doctrine
that even a genuine domicile in Nevada
might not result in a decree binding on
the state of the matrimonial domicile
That is why Mr.. Justice Douglas said:
I'VE must assume that the petitioners
had bona flde domicile in Nevada
He did not mean that no one could
question the soundness of Nevadas find
ing that they did.
The dissenters in the Williams case
felt that no injustice had been done
because the possibility was too f1imsy
that the jury might have based its con-
Viction on the Haddock doctrine, since
it was obvious anyway that there was no
genuine domicile in Nevada: but the
majority evidently thought this was too
good an opportunity to overrule the
Haddock case TO let slip, so they in
voked that theoretical possibility as
ground for re-eXamining and over
ruling the Haddock doctrine. That case
iICCOCu " DC ONtIIuIbU. IL Udu DePn
storm center for years.
The Case of Haddock VS.. Haddock.
In Haddock vs. Haddock, almost i'm
mediately after marriage in New York,
the husband left and went to Connecti-
cut where he lived many years, obtained
divorce. and later was sued by his
former wife in New York for divorce.
The Supreme Court held, in effect, in a
five-to-four decision, speaking through
Chief Justice White, that although the
divorce was valid in Connecticut, being
based on a genuine domicile there, it
need not be recognized in New York, the
State OF the matrimonial domicile, if the
New York court found that the husband
had left his wife wrongfully In other
words, the binding character of the
divorce, though valid in Connecticut,
could depend on what the other State
thought, not about the genuineness of
the Connecticut domicile, but about the
merits OF the marital dispute. That
made into jurisdictional issue some
thing which belonged only in the merits
of the case. So in overruling that case
the court, in the Williams case, went
long way to bring order into our divorce
laws, by deciding that from now onward,
II the divorce is valid where rendered,
1t must be so recognized in all our
States.
The court has not said that Nevada
can lift Itself by its own bootstraps and
that we must assume that Nevada resi-