Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/78/88/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 09:56:46+00:00

Document:
1. When there are two acts of Congress on the same subject, and the latter act embraces all the provisions of the first, and also new provisions, and imposes different or additional penalties, the latter act operates, without any repealing clause, as a repeal of the first.
Accordingly, the thirteenth section of the act of Congress of 1813 "for the regulation of seamen on board the public and private vessels of the United States," which defined certain offenses against the naturalization laws, and prescribed their punishment, was held to be repealed by the act of Congress of 1870, "to amend the naturalization laws, and to punish crimes against the same, and for other purposes," which declared not only that the commission of the several acts mentioned in the thirteenth section of the law of 1813 should constitute a felony, but that also a great number of other acts of a fraudulent character, in connection with the naturalization of aliens, should constitute a similar offense, and made the infliction of a larger punishment for each offense discretionary with the court.
2. By the repeal of an act, without any reservation of its penalties, all criminal proceedings taken under it fall. There can be no legal conviction, nor any valid judgment pronounced upon conviction, unless the law creating the offense be at the time in existence.
Tynen, the defendant, was indicted under the thirteenth section of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1813, entitled "An act for the regulation of seamen on board the public and private vessels of the United States." The general object of the act, as expressed in its title, was carried out in the first eleven sections.
They declared that it should not be lawful, after the termination of the war then existing with Great Britain, to employ on board any public or private vessels of the United States any persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color natives of the United States, and they required naturalized citizens thus employed to produce to the commanders of public vessels, or collectors of customs, as the case might be, a certified copy of the act by which they were naturalized, setting forth the naturalization and the date thereof. They also contained various clauses to give effect to these requirements, but at the same time declared that the provisions of the act should not preclude the employment as seamen of the subjects or citizens of any foreign nations which should not have prohibited, by treaty or special convention with the United States, the employment on board of her public or private vessels of native citizens of the United States who had not become citizens or subjects of such nation.
The twelfth section declared that no person living within the United States after the act took effect should be admitted to become a citizen who should not, for the continued term of five years next preceding his admission, have resided within the United States without being at any time absent therefrom.
utter, or use as true any false, forged, or counterfeited certificate of citizenship, or to make sale or dispose of any certificate of citizenship to any person other than the person for whom it was originally issued, and to whom it may of right belong,"
and prescribes as punishment for the offense imprisonment for a period of not less than three nor more than five years OR a fine in a sum not less than $500 nor more than $1000, at the discretion of the court.
The indictment charged the defendant with the second of the offenses here designated; that he did willfully, falsely, and feloniously pass, utter, and use as true a false, forged, and counterfeited certificate of citizenship purporting to have been issued by one of the district courts of California, and setting forth with particularity a compliance with the several requirements of the law for the naturalization of aliens.
The indictment did not allege what use was made by the defendant of the forged certificate or any purpose for which it was uttered, and the defendant demurred. The several grounds of demurrer -- reduced to substantially one -- were that the indictment did not charge that the certificate or evidence of naturalization was forged to accomplish any purpose contemplated by the act of Congress under which the indictment was found, or for any other unlawful purpose, or with intent to injure the United States or any state, person, corporation, or association.
on the 14th July, 1870, Congress passed an act entitled "An act to amend the naturalization laws and to punish crimes against the same, and for other purposes," [Footnote 1] which embraced the whole subject of frauds against the naturalization laws. It declared all the acts mentioned in the thirteenth section of the law of 1813 felonies, but also declared a great number of other acts of a fraudulent character in connection with the naturalization of aliens felonies in addition, and made the infliction of a larger punishment for each offense discretionary with the court. Thus it authorized imprisonment AND fine, either or both, in the court's discretion, where the former act gave one OR the other only, and where the act of 1813 made the imprisonment not less than three years and the fine not less than $500, the new act made the imprisonment not less than one year and the fine not less than $300.
The matter now to be considered by this Court was what was the effect of this act of July 14, 1870, upon the provisions of the thirteenth section of the act of 1813, and if it worked a repeal of those provisions, what was the proper action to be taken by the court on the certificate of division?
for since they arose in the circuit court, Congress has passed a statute amending the naturalization laws and prescribing certain punishments for their violation, which has worked a repeal of the provisions of the 13th section of the act of 1813. That statute, which was approved on the 14th of July, 1870, declares not only that the commission of the several acts mentioned in the 13th section of the law of 1813 shall constitute a felony, but that also a great number of other acts of a fraudulent character in connection with the naturalization of aliens shall constitute a similar offense, and has made the infliction of a larger punishment for each offense discretionary with the court. The act of 1813 imposes as punishment either imprisonment or fine, at the discretion of the court. The act of 1870 authorizes either of these punishments, or both, in the like discretion of the court. The act of 1813 allows the imprisonment to run between three and five years, and the fine to extend between five hundred and one thousand dollars. The act of 1870 fixes the imprisonment between one and five years, and the fine between three hundred and one thousand dollars.
the punishment for the offenses designated imprisonment or fine. It provides that the punishment shall be one or the other, and in so doing declares that it shall not be both. The second act allows both punishments in the discretion of the court; it thus permits what the first law prohibits.
Again, the act of 1813 provides that the imprisonment, when imposed as a punishment, shall not be less than three years, and may be extended to five. The act of 1870 allows the imprisonment to be fixed at one year, and from that period upwards to five years. In this also it permits what the first act forbids.
Again, the act of 1813 declares that the fine, when imposed, shall not be less than five hundred dollars. The act of 1870 allows the fine to be as low as three hundred dollars, thus authorizing what the first act declares shall not be done.
When repugnant provisions like these exist between two acts, the latter act is held, according to all the authorities to operate as a repeal of the first act, for the latter act expresses the will of the government as to the manner in which the offenses shall be subsequently treated.
against killing deer in an enclosed park. The first statute made the offense a felony punishable with death. The last statute punished the first offense with a fine, and made the second offense a felony, and the twelve judges were unanimously of opinion that the last statute amounted to a repeal of so much of the first as related to the offense of felony.
There are numerous cases in the modern reports to the same effect. We will cite only one, which was decided in this Court, that of Norris v. Crocker. [Footnote 6] In that case, the defendants were sued in an action of debt to recover the penalty of five hundred dollars upon the 4th section of the act of Congress of February, 1793, respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters. That section provided that any person who should knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder the claimant, his agent, or attorney, in seizing or arresting the fugitive from labor, or should rescue him from such claimant, agent, or attorney, when arrested by the authority given by the act, or should harbor or conceal him, after notice that he was a fugitive from labor, should forfeit and pay for each of these offenses the sum of five hundred dollars, to be recovered by the claimant in an action of debt.
"not open to controversy, that when a new statute covers the whole subject of an old one, adds offenses, and prescribes different penalties for those enumerated in the old law, that the former statute is repealed by implication, as the provisions of both cannot stand together."
By the repeal of the 13th section of the act of 1813, all criminal proceedings taken under it fell. There can be no legal conviction, nor any valid judgment pronounced upon conviction, unless the law creating the offense be at the time in existence. By the repeal, the legislative will is expressed that no further proceedings be had under the act repealed. In Norris v. Crocker, the court said that, as the plaintiff's right to recover in that case depended entirely on the statute, its repeal deprived the court of jurisdiction over the subject. As said by Mr. Justice Taney in another case, "The repeal of the law imposing the penalty is of itself a remission." [Footnote 7] In the case at bar, when the 13th section of the act of 1813 was repealed, there was no offense remaining for the court to punish in virtue of that section.
Approved July 14, 1870, 16 Stat. at Large 254.
United States v. Rosenburgh, 7 Wall. 580.
Davies v. Fairbairn, 3 How. 636; Bartlet v. King, 12 Mass. 537; Commonwealth v. Cooley, 10 Pickering 36; Pierpont v. Crouch, 10 Cal. 315; Norris v. Crocker, 13 How. 429; Sedgwick on Statute Law 126.
1st Leach, Crown Cases 271.
54 U. S. 13 How. 429.
State of Maryland v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 3 How. 534.

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