Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/312/342/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 14:55:30+00:00

Document:
1. A citizen of the United States who willfully and knowingly uses a United States passport which was secured by a false statement, is guilty of an offense under § 2 of the Passport Title of the Act of June 15, 1917, when the use was for the purpose of establishing his identity and citizenship and consequent right to reenter this country from abroad. Browder v. United States, ante, p. 312 U. S. 335. P. 312 U. S. 343.
2. Evidence consisting of a ship's manifest of incoming United States citizens with their names and the numbers of their respective passports, and the testimony of an immigration inspector as to his practice of examining the passports in such cases, checking their numbers with those on the manifest, held sufficient to go to the jury on the question whether the prisoner presented his passport on entering the country. P. 312 U. S. 344.
3. Statements that were made by an accused before the commission of the crime charged and which are inconsistent with his innocence are admissible in evidence without corroborative proof. P. 312 U. S. 347. 113 F.2d 100, affirmed.
Certiorari, 311 U.S. 631, to review the affirmance of a sentence under an indictment.
This case is similar to Browder v. United States, ante, p. 312 U. S. 335. This petitioner also was indicted for the use of a passport for the purpose of entering the United States, which passport had been secured by false statements in the application for its issue. We granted certiorari, 311 U.S. 631, because of the contention that this use of the passport was not prohibited by section 2, Title IX of the Act of June 15, 1917, and because of a conflict on a rule of evidence, referred to by the Circuit Court of Appeals.
before the crime, without corroboration, to establish necessary elements of the charge.
Nothing need be added to the discussion in the Browder case of the illegality of this use. There are no marks of differentiation.
"it is my invariable practice when the number of the passport appears on the manifest to ask for that passport and have it shown to me . . . by the passenger."
"THE COURT: . . . do you make any entry on the manifest when a man identifies himself as an American citizen?"
"THE WITNESS: The whole manifest is of American citizens."
"THE COURT: And when the man presented his passport, what did you do?"
"THE WITNESS: That check mark shows he was admitted as a United States citizen."
"THE COURT: On a passport?"
"THE COURT: Can you tell us whether he had a passport? "
"THE WITNESS: From the fact the number of the passport appears there."
"Q. And you checked --"
"Mr. Fowler: That is objected to."
"Q. Did you check the information on the manifest with information in the passport?"
The petitioner asks reversal because of the answer "Not necessarily," contending this shows that the check mark did not inescapably indicate the presentation of a passport. The Government argues that the check mark was intended merely to show admission as a citizen, and that the language does not nullify or indeed impugn the direct assertions of the inspector. We are clear that this testimony as a whole justified the submission to the jury, at any rate, and its conclusion that petitioner actually used his passport in securing admission to this country.
for naturalization under his own name, or the names "Weiner" or "Wiener," which he on occasion used. In his 1936 application for a passport in the name of Robert William Wiener, petitioner submitted a certified transcript of an entry in the Atlantic City birth records that a person of that name was born there September 5, 1896, but, at the trial, the Government proved the entry a forgery.
a reasonable doubt the commission of a crime, but these are exceptions to the normal requirement that disputed questions of fact are to be submitted to the jury under appropriate instructions. In this case, the earlier statements of birth, and therefore necessarily of residence outside of the United States, if believed by the jury, prove the falsity of the statements to the contrary in the application. Where the crime charged is a false statement, and where it finds its only proof in admissions to the contrary prior to the act set out in the indictment, it may be unlikely that a jury will conclude that the falsity of the later statement is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but such evidence justifies submission of the question to them.
In this present case, there was other evidence of the falsity of the disputed statements in the application. The manifest of the S.S. Haverford showed petitioner's arrival and classification as an alien at Philadelphia in 1914. The forged birth certificate adds to the proof of foreign birth by showing an effort to establish American nativity by false means and the Government's proof of the absence of any attempt at naturalization supports the allegation of false statement as to citizenship.
Wharton, Criminal Law, 12th Ed., §§ 357, 359; Daeche v. United States, 250 F. 566; Wigmore, Evidence, 3d Ed., §§ 2070-71; Chamberlayne, Modern Law of Evidence § 1598; Underhill, Criminal Evidence, 4th Ed., p. 42.
Cf. Forte v. United States, 68 App.D.C. 111, 94 F.2d 236.
Cf. Miles v. United States, 103 U. S. 304.
Phair v. United States, 60 F.2d 953. Cf. United States v. Harris, 311 U. S. 292.

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