Source: https://openjurist.org/232/us/37
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 06:38:27+00:00

Document:
Assistant Attorney General Denison and Assistant Attorney General Harr for petitioner.
Messrs. David L. Podell and Max D. Steuer for respondent.
'Sec. 4. That it shall be a misdemeanor for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation or in any way to assist or encourage the importation or migration of any contract laborer or contract laborers into the United States, unless such contract laborer or contract laborers are exempted under the terms of the last two provisos contained in section two of this act.
These sections are largely copied from the like-numbered sections of the act of March 3, 1903 (32 Stat. at L. 1213, chap. 1012), the words 'shall be unlawful' in § 4 being changed to 'shall be a misdemeanor,' and the words 'shall forfeit and pay for every such offense,' § 5, with what follows them, remaining as before.
Whether cases like this are civil or criminal, and whether they are attended by the incidents of the one or the other, have been so often considered by this court that out present duty, as we shall see, is chiefly that of applying settled rules of decision.
(p. 108) 'It must be taken as settled law that a certain sum, or a sum which can readily be reduced to a certainty, prescribed in a statute as a penalty for the violation of law, may be recovered by civil action, even if it may also be recovered in a proceeding which is technically criminal. Of course, if the statute by which the penalty was imposed contemplated recovery only by a criminal proceeding, a civil remedy could not be adopted. United States v. Claflin, 97 U. S. 546, 24 L. ed. 1082. But there can be no doubt that the words of the statute on which the present suit is based are broad enough to embrace, and were intended to embrace, a civil action to recover the prescribed penalty. It provides that the penalty of one thousand dollars may be 'sued for' and recovered by the United States or by any 'person' who shall first bring his 'action' therefor 'in his own name and for his own benefit,' 'as debts of like amount are now recovered in the courts of the United States;' and 'separate suits' may be brought for each alien thus promised labor or service of any kind. The district attorney is required to prosecute every such 'suit' when brought by the United States. These references in the statute to the proceeding for recovering the penalty plainly indicate that a civil action is an appropriate mode of proceeding.
(p. 111) 'But the decision in the Zucker Case is important in that it recognizes the right of the government, by a civil action of debt, to recover a statutory penalty, although such penalty arises from the commission of a public offense. It is important also in that it decides that an action of that kind is not of such a criminal nature as to preclude the government from establishing, according to the practice in strictly civil cases, its right to a judgment by depositions taken in the usual form, without confronting the defendant with the witnesses against him.
It is a necessary conclusion from these cases (1) that, as respects a pecuniary penalty for the commission of a public offense, Congress competently may authorize, and in this instance has authorized, the enforcement of such penalty by either a criminal prosecution or a civil action; (2) that the present action is a civil one and appropriate under the statute; and (3) that, if not directed otherwise, such an action is to be conducted and determined according to the same rules and with the same incidents as are other civil actions.
It is of no moment in this case that the act penalized, which theretofore was declared unlawful and styled an offense, was by the statute of 1907 denominated a misdemeanor, for the purpose in that, as was explained in United States v. Stevenson, was merely to make clear the government's alternative right to prosecute as for a crime. There was no purpose to revoke the existing right to resort to a civil action, or to take from the action any of the usual incidents of a civil case. Indeed, a purpose to the contrary is shown by the re-enactment, without change, of the provision authorizing the action. It not only specifies who shall have the civil right of recovery, but also the mode of its exercise and enforcement; for it declares that the penalty 'may be sued for any recovered' by the United States, or by any person, including the alien, who shall first being the action in his own name and for his own benefit, 'as debts of like amount are now recovered in the courts of the United States.' This plainly contemplates that the proceedings in the action are to be in conformity with the recognized mode of adjudicating and enforcing debts of like amount in those courts, and this whether the action be by the government or by an individual.
While the defendant was entitled to have the issues tried before a jury, this right did not arise from article 3 of the Constitution or from the 6th Amendment, for both relate to prosecutions which are strictly criminal in their nature (Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 563, 35 L. ed. 1110, 1114, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 816, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 195; United States v. Zucker, 161 U. S. 475, 481, 40 L. ed. 777, 779, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 641; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540, 549, 32 L. ed. 223, 226, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1301), but it did arise out of the fact that in a civil action of debt involving more than $20 a jury trial is demandable. And while in a strictly criminal prosecution the jury may not return a verdict against the defendant unless the evidence establishes his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, in civil actions it is the duty of the jury to resolve the issues of fact according to a reasonable preponderance of the evidence, and this although they may involve a penalized or criminal act.
So, in providing that the penalty may be sued for and recovered as debts of like amount are recovered, we think it was intended that a reasonable preponderance of the proof should be sufficient, that being one of the recognized incidents of an action of debt as well as of other civil actions.
The cases upon which the defendant relies do not compel or lead to a different conclusion. While in United States v. The Burdett, 9 Pet. 682, 9 L. ed. 273, language was used giving color to the contention that in an action such as this the true measure of persuasion is that applied in criminal prosecutions, the court was careful in Lilienthal v. United States, 97 U. S. 237, 24 L. ed. 901, to point out (pp. 266, 267) the distinction in this regard between criminal prosecutions and civil cases, and to show (p. 272) that the case of The Burdett is not an authority for disregarding the distinction, and that in an action to enforce a forfeiture the jury, if satisfied of the truth of the charge upon which the forfeiture depends, 'may render a verdict for the government, even though the proof falls short of what is required in a criminal case prosecuted by indictment.' In Chaffee v. United States, 18 Wall. 516, 21 L. ed. 908, the trial court, probably in deference to what was said in the case of The Burdett, had instructed the jury that proof beyond a reasonable doubt was essential to a recovery; but, as the government had a verdict and judgment, and was not in a position to assign error upon the instruction, the case hardly can be regarded as settling the propriety of such an instruction, especially as in Coffey v. United States, 116 U. S. 436, 443, 29 L. ed. 684, 686, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 437, thirteen years later, it was plainly assumed that in such actions the true measure of persuasion is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but the preponderating weight of the evidence. The cases of Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 29 L. ed. 746, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524, and Lees v. United States, 150 U. S. 476, 37 L. ed. 1150, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 163, are without present application, for they deal with the guaranty in the 5th Amendment to the Constitution against compulsory self-incrimination, which, as this court has held, embraces proceedings to enforce penalties and forfeitures as well as criminal prosecutions, and is of broader scope than are the guaranties in article 3 and the 6th Amendment govrning trials in criminal prosecutions. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 563, 35 L. ed. 1110, 1114, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 816, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 195; United States v. Zucker, 161 U. S. 475, 481, 40 L. ed. 777, 779, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 641; Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103, 112, 53 L. ed. 720, 724, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 474, 16 Ann. Cas. 960. See also Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540, 549, 32 L. ed. 223, 226, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1301; Schick v. United States, 195 U. S. 65, 68, 49 L. ed. 99, 101, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 826, 1 Ann. Cas. 585.
We conclude that it was error to apply to this case the standard of persuasion applicable to criminal prosecutions; and the judgment is accordingly reversed, with a direction for a new trial.

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