Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/356/86/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-10-22 17:27:58
Document Index: 774176803

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 401', '§ 401', '§ 401', '§ 401', '§ 401', 'Art. 58', '§ 401', 'Art. 58', '§ 6', 'Art. 1', '§ 1']

The facts are not in dispute. In 1944, petitioner was a private in the United States Army, serving in French Morocco. On May 22, he escaped from a stockade at Casablanca, where he had been confined following a previous breach of discipline. The next day, petitioner and a companion were walking along a road towards Rabat, in the general direction back to Casablanca, when an Army truck approached and stopped. A witness testified that petitioner boarded the truck willingly, and that no words were spoken. In Rabat, petitioner was turned over to military police. Thus, ended petitioner's "desertion." He had been gone less than a day, and had willingly surrendered to an officer on an Army vehicle while he was walking back towards his base. He testified that, at the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In 1952, petitioner applied for a passport. His application was denied on the ground that, under the provisions of Section 401(g) of the Nationality Act of 1940, as amended, [Footnote 1] he had lost his citizenship by reason of his conviction and dishonorable discharge for wartime desertion. In 1955, petitioner commenced this action in the District Court, seeking a declaratory judgment that he is a citizen. The Government's motion for summary judgment was granted, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, Chief Judge Clark dissenting. 239 F.2d 527. We granted certiorari. 352 U.S. 1023. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Section 401(g), the statute that decrees the forfeiture of this petitioner's citizenship, is based directly on a Civil War statute, which provided that a deserter would lose his "rights of citizenship." [Footnote 2] The meaning of this phrase was not clear. [Footnote 3] When the 1940 codification and revision of the nationality laws was prepared, the Civil War statute was amended to make it certain that what a convicted deserter would lose was nationality itself. [Footnote 4] In 1944, the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Though these amendments were added to ameliorate the harshness of the statute, [Footnote 6] their combined effect produces a result that poses far graver problems than the ones that were sought to be solved. Section 401(g), as amended, now gives the military authorities complete discretion to decide who among convicted deserters shall continue to be Americans and who shall be stateless. By deciding whether to issue and execute a dishonorable discharge and whether to allow a deserter to reenter the armed forces, the military becomes the arbiter of citizenship. And the domain given to it by Congress is not as narrow as might be supposed. Though the crime of desertion is one of the most serious in military law, it is by no no means a rare event for a soldier to be convicted of this crime. The elements of desertion are simply absence from duty plus the intention not to return. [Footnote 7] Into this chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In Perez v. Brownell, supra, I expressed the principles that I believe govern the constitutional status of United chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Citizenship is not a license that expires upon misbehavior. The duties of citizenship are numerous, and the discharge of many of these obligations is essential to the security and wellbeing of the Nation. The citizen who fails to pay his taxes or to abide by the laws safeguarding the integrity of elections deals a dangerous blow to his country. But could a citizen be deprived of his nationality for evading these basic responsibilities of citizenship? In time of war, the citizen's duties include not only the military defense of the Nation, but also full participation in the manifold activities of the civilian ranks. Failure to perform any of these obligations may cause the Nation serious injury, and, in appropriate circumstances, the punishing power is available to deal with derelictions of duty. But citizenship is not lost every time a duty of citizenship is shirked. And the deprivation of citizenship chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Since a majority of the Court concluded in Perez v. Brownell that citizenship may be divested in the exercise of some governmental power, I deem it appropriate to state additionally why the action taken in this case exceeds constitutional limits, even under the majority's decision in Perez. The Court concluded in Perez that citizenship could be divested in the exercise of the foreign affairs power. In this case, it is urged that the war power is adequate to support the divestment of citizenship. But there is a vital difference between the two statutes that purport to implement these powers by decreeing loss of citizenship. The statute in Perez decreed loss of citizenship -- so the majority concluded -- to eliminate those international problems that were thought to arise by reason of a citizen's having voted in a foreign election. The statute in this case, however, is entirely different. Section 401(g) decrees loss of citizenship for those found guilty of the crime of desertion. It is essentially like Section 401(j) of the Nationality Act decreeing loss of citizenship for evading the draft by remaining outside the United States. [Footnote 10] This provision chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The constitutional question posed by Section 401(g) would appear to be whether or not denationalization may be inflicted as a punishment, even assuming that citizenship may be divested pursuant to some governmental power. But the Government contends that this statute does not impose a penalty, and that constitutional limitations on the power of Congress to punish are therefore inapplicable. We are told this is so because a committee of Cabinet members, in recommending this legislation to the Congress, said it "technically is not a penal law." [Footnote 11] How simple would be the tasks of constitutional adjudication and of law generally if specific problems could be solved by inspection of the labels pasted on them! Manifestly, the issue of whether Section 401(g) is a penal law cannot be thus determined. Of course, it is relevant to know the classification employed by the Cabinet Committee that played such an important role in the preparation of the Nationality Act of 1940. But it is equally relevant to know that this very committee acknowledged that Section 401(g) was based on the provisions of the 1865 Civil War statute, which the committee itself termed "distinctly penal in character." [Footnote 12] Furthermore, the 1865 chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
This Court has been called upon to decide whether or not various statutes were penal ever since 1798. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386. Each time a statute has been challenged as being in conflict with the constitutional prohibitions against bills of attainder and ex post facto chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
laws, [Footnote 16] it has been necessary to determine whether a penal law was involved, because these provisions apply only to statutes imposing penalties. [Footnote 17] In deciding whether or not a law is penal, this Court has generally based its determination upon the purpose of the statute. [Footnote 18] If the statute imposes a disability for the purposes of punishment -- that is, to reprimand the wrongdoer, to deter others, etc. -- it has been considered penal. [Footnote 19] But a statute has been considered nonpenal if it imposes a disability not to punish, but to accomplish some other legitimate governmental purpose. [Footnote 20] The Court has recognized that any statute decreeing some adversity as a consequence of certain conduct may have both a penal and a nonpenal effect. The controlling nature of such statutes normally depends on the evident purpose of the legislature. The point may be illustrated by the situation of an ordinary felon. A person who commits a bank robbery, for instance, loses his right to liberty, and often his right to vote. [Footnote 21] If, in the exercise of the power to protect banks, both sanctions were imposed for the purpose of punishing bank robbers, the statutes authorizing both disabilities would be penal. But because the purpose of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is urged that this statute is not a penal law, but a regulatory provision authorized by the war power. It cannot be denied that Congress has power to prescribe rules governing the proper performance of military obligations, of which perhaps the most significant is the performance of one's duty when hazardous or important service is required. But a statute that prescribes the consequence that will befall one who fails to abide by these regulatory provisions is a penal law. Plainly legislation prescribing imprisonment for the crime of desertion is penal in nature. If loss of citizenship is substituted for imprisonment, it cannot fairly be said that the use of this particular sanction transforms the fundamental nature of the statute. In fact, a dishonorable discharge with consequent loss of citizenship might be the only punishment meted out by a court-martial. During World War II, the threat of this punishment was explicitly communicated by the Army to soldiers in the field. [Footnote 23] If this statute taking away citizenship is a congressional exercise of the war power, then it cannot rationally be treated other than as a penal law, because it imposes the sanction of denationalization chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Government argues that the sanction of denationalization imposed by Section 401(g) is not a penalty, because deportation has not been so considered by this Court. While deportation is undoubtedly a harsh sanction that has a severe penal effect, this Court has in the past sustained deportation as an exercise of the sovereign's power to determine the conditions upon which an alien may reside in this country. [Footnote 24] For example, the statute [Footnote 25] authorizing deportation of an alien convicted under the 1917 Espionage Act [Footnote 26] was viewed not as designed to punish him for the crime of espionage, but as an implementation of the sovereign power to exclude, from which the deporting power is derived. Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32. This view of deportation may be highly fictional, but even if its validity is conceded, it is wholly inapplicable to this case. No one contends that the Government has, in addition to the power to exclude all aliens, a sweeping power to denationalize all citizens. Nor does comparison to denaturalization eliminate the penal effect of denationalization in this case. Denaturalization is not imposed to penalize the alien for having falsified his application for citizenship; if it were, it would be a punishment. Rather, it is imposed in the exercise of the power to make rules for the naturalization of aliens. [Footnote 27] In short, the fact that deportation and denaturalization for fraudulent procurement of citizenship may be imposed for purposes other than punishment affords no chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The exact scope of the constitutional phrase "cruel and unusual" has not been detailed by this Court. [Footnote 29] But the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
basic policy reflected in these words is firmly established in the Anglo-American tradition of criminal justice. The phrase in our Constitution was taken directly from the English Declaration of Rights of 1688, [Footnote 30] and the principle it represents can be traced back to the Magna Carta. [Footnote 31] The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man. While the State has the power to punish, the Amendment stands to assure that this power be exercised within the limits of civilized standards. Fines, imprisonment and even execution may be imposed depending upon the enormity of the crime, but any technique outside the bounds of these traditional penalties is constitutionally suspect. This Court has had little occasion to give precise content to the Eighth Amendment, and, in an enlightened democracy such as ours, this is not surprising. But when the Court was confronted with a punishment of 12 years in irons at hard and painful labor imposed for the crime of falsifying public records, it did not hesitate to declare that the penalty was cruel in its excessiveness and unusual in its character. Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349. The Court recognized in that case that the words of the Amendment are not precise, [Footnote 32] and that their chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We believe, as did Chief Judge Clark in the court below, [Footnote 33] that use of denationalization as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment. There may be involved no physical mistreatment, no primitive torture. There is, instead, the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society. It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development. The punishment strips the citizen of his status in the national and international political community. His very existence is at the sufferance of the country in which he happens to find himself. While any one country may accord him some rights and, presumably, as long as he remained in this country, he would enjoy the limited rights of an alien, no country need do so, because he is stateless. Furthermore, his enjoyment of even the limited rights of an alien might be subject to termination chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The civilized nations of the world are in virtual unanimity that statelessness is not to be imposed as punishment for crime. It is true that several countries prescribe expatriation in the event that their nationals engage in conduct in derogation of native allegiance. [Footnote 37] Even statutes of this sort are generally applicable primarily chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The provisions of the Constitution are not time-worn adages or hollow shibboleths. They are vital, living principles that authorize and limit governmental powers in our Nation. They are the rules of government. When the constitutionality of an Act of Congress is challenged in this Court, we must apply those rules. If we chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Even if citizenship could be involuntarily divested, I do not believe that the power to denationalize may be placed in the hands of military authorities. If desertion or other misconduct is to be a basis for forfeiting citizenship, guilt should be determined in a civilian court of justice, where all the protections of the Bill of Rights guard the fairness of the outcome. Such forfeiture should not rest on the findings of a military tribunal. Military courts may try soldiers and punish them for military offenses, but they should not have the last word on the soldier's right to citizenship. The statute held invalid chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Here, as in Perez v. Brownell, we must inquire whether there exists a relevant connection between the particular legislative enactment and the power granted to Congress by the Constitution. The Court there held that such a relevant connection exists between the power to maintain relations with other sovereign nations and the power to expatriate the American who votes in a foreign election. (1) Within the power granted to Congress to regulate the conduct of foreign affairs lies the power to deal with evils which might obstruct or embarrass our diplomatic chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
interests. Among these evils, Congress might believe, is that of voting by American citizens in political elections of other nations. [Footnote 2/1] Whatever the realities of he situation, many foreign nations may well view political activity on the part of Americans, even if lawful, as either expressions of official American positions or else as improper meddling in affairs not their own. In either event, the reaction is liable to be detrimental to the interests of the United States. (2) Finding that this was an evil which Congress was empowered to prevent, the Court concluded that expatriation was a means reasonably calculated to achieve this end. Expatriation, it should be noted, has the advantage of acting automatically, for the very act of casting the ballot is the act of denationalization, which could have the effect of cutting off American responsibility for the consequences. If a foreign government objects, our answer should be conclusive -- the voter is no longer one of ours. Harsh as the consequences may be to the individual concerned, Congress has ordained the loss of citizenship simultaneously with the act of voting because Congress might reasonably believe that, in these circumstances, there is no acceptable alternative to expatriation as a means of avoiding possible embarrassments to our relations with foreign nations. [Footnote 2/2] And where Congress has determined that considerations of the highest national importance indicate a course of action for which an adequate chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Expatriation of the deserter originated in the Act of 1865, 13 Stat. 490, when wholesale desertion and draft law violations seriously threatened the effectiveness of the Union armies. [Footnote 2/3] The 1865 Act expressly provided chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
This view of the 1865 Act was approved by this Court in Kurtz v. Mott, 115 U. S. 487, 115 U. S. 501, and, as noted there, the same view "has been uniformly held by the civil courts as well as by the military authorities." See McCafferty v. Guyer, 59 Pa. 109; State v. Symonds, 57 Me. 148; Gotcheus v. Matheson, 58 Barb. (N.Y.) 152; 2 Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents (2d ed. 1896), 1001. [Footnote 2/4] Of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is difficult, indeed, to see how expatriation of the deserter helps wage war except as it performs that function when imposed as punishment. It is obvious that expatriation cannot in any wise avoid the harm apprehended by Congress. After the act of desertion, only chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
To characterize expatriation as punishment is, of course, but the beginning of critical inquiry. As punishment, it may be extremely harsh, but the crime of desertion may be grave indeed. However, the harshness of the punishment may be an important consideration where the asserted power to expatriate has only a slight or tenuous relation to the granted power. In its material forms, no one can today judge the precise consequences of expatriation, for, happily, American law has had little experience with this status, and it cannot be said hypothetically to what extent the severity of the status may be increased consistently with the demands of due process. But it can be supposed that the consequences of greatest weight, in terms of ultimate impact on the petitioner, are unknown and unknowable. [Footnote 2/7] Indeed, in truth, he may live out his life with but minor inconvenience. He may perhaps live, work, marry, raise a family, and generally experience a satisfactorily happy life. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the impact of expatriation -- especially where statelessness is the upshot -- may be severe. Expatriation, in this respect, constitutes an chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The novelty of expatriation as punishment does not alone demonstrate its inefficiency. In recent years, we have seen such devices as indeterminate sentences and parole added to the traditional term of imprisonment. Such penal methods seek to achieve the end, at once more humane and effective, that society should make every effort to rehabilitate the offender and restore him as a useful member of that society as society's own best protection. Of course, rehabilitation is but one of the several purposes of the penal law. Among other purposes are deterrents of the wrongful act by the threat of punishment and insulation of society from dangerous individuals by imprisonment or execution. What, then, is the relationship of the punishment of expatriation to these ends of the penal law? It is perfectly obvious that it constitutes the very antithesis of rehabilitation, for instead of guiding the offender back into the useful paths of society, it excommunicates him and makes him, literally, an outcast. I can think of no more certain way in which to make a man in whom, perhaps, rest the seeds of serious anti-social behavior more likely to pursue further a career of unlawful activity than to place on him the stigma of the derelict, uncertain of many of his basic rights. Similarly, it must be questioned whether expatriation chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In the light of these considerations, it is understandable that the Government has not pressed its case on the basis of expatriation of the deserter as punishment for his crime. Rather, the Government argues that the necessary nexus to the granted power is to be found in the idea that legislative withdrawal of citizenship is justified in this case because Trop's desertion constituted a refusal to perform one of the highest duties of American citizenship -- the bearing of arms in a time of desperate national peril. It cannot be denied that there is implicit in this a certain rough justice. He who refuses to act as an American should no longer be an American -- what could be fairer? But I cannot see that this is anything other than forcing retribution from the offender -- naked vengeance. But many acts of desertion certainly fall far short of a "refusal to perform this ultimate duty of American citizenship." chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It seems to me that nothing is solved by the uncritical reference to service in the armed forces as the "ultimate duty of American citizenship." Indeed, it is very difficult to imagine, on this theory of power, why Congress cannot impose expatriation as punishment for any crime at all -- for tax evasion, for bank robbery, for narcotics offenses. As citizens, we are also called upon to pay our taxes and to obey the laws, and these duties appear to me to be fully as related to the nature of our citizenship as our military obligations. But Congress' asserted power to expatriate the deserter bears to the war powers precisely the same relation as its power to expatriate the tax evader would bear to the taxing power. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
I therefore must conclude that § 401(g) is beyond the power of Congress to enact. Admittedly Congress' belief that expatriation of the deserter might further the war effort may find some -- though necessarily slender -- support in reason. But here, any substantial achievement, by this device, of Congress' legitimate purposes under the war power seems fairly remote. It is at the same time abundantly clear that these ends could more fully be achieved by alternative methods not open to these objections. In the light of these factors, and conceding all that I possibly can in favor of the enactment, I can only conclude that the requisite rational relation between this statute and the war power does not appear -- for, in this relation, the statute is not "really calculated to effect any of the objects entrusted to the government . . . ," @ 17 U. S. 423 -- and therefore that § 401(g) falls beyond the domain of Congress.
Petitioner was born in Ohio in 1924. While in the Army serving in French Morocco in 1944, he was tried by a general court-martial and found guilty of having twice escaped from confinement, of having been absent without leave, and of having deserted and remained in desertion for one day. He was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement at hard labor for three years. He subsequently returned to the United States. In 1952, he applied for a passport; this application was denied by the State Department on the ground that petitioner had lost his citizenship as a result of his conviction of and dishonorable discharge for desertion from the Army in time of war. The Department relied upon § 401 of the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In 1955, petitioner brought suit in a United States District Court for a judgment declaring him to be a national of the United States. The Government's motion for summary judgment was granted, and petitioner's denied. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Except as limited in 1912 to desertion in time of war, 37 Stat. 356, the provision remained in effect until absorbed into the Nationality Act of 1940. 54 Stat. 1137, 1169, 1172. Shortly after its enactment, the 1865 provision received an important interpretation in Huber v. Reily, 53 Pa. 112 (1866). There, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in an opinion by Mr. Justice Strong, later of this Court, held that the disabilities of the 1865 Act could attach only after the individual had been convicted of desertion by a court-martial. The requirement was drawn from the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. 53 Pa. at 116-118. This interpretation was chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In 1944, at the request of the War Department, Congress amended § 401(g) of the 1940 Act into the form in which it was when applied to the petitioner; this amendment required that a dismissal or dishonorable discharge result from the conviction for desertion before expatriation should follow, and provided that restoration of a deserter to active duty during wartime should have the effect of restoring his citizenship. 58 Stat. 4. It is abundantly clear from the debate and reports that the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioner's argument is that the dishonorable discharge must be solely "the result of such conviction," and that § 401(g) is therefore not applicable to him, convicted as he was of escape from confinement and absence without leave, in addition to desertion. Since the invariable practice in military trials chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Since none of petitioner's nonconstitutional grounds for reversal can be sustained, his claim of unconstitutionality must be faced. What is always basic when the power of Congress to enact legislation is challenged is the appropriate approach to judicial review of congressional legislation. All power is, in Madison's phrase, "of an encroaching nature." Federalist, No. 48 (Earle ed.1937), at 321. Judicial power is not immune against this human weakness. It also must be on guard against encroaching beyond its proper bounds, and not the less so since the only restraint upon it is self-restraint. When the power of Congress to pass a statute is challenged, the function chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
One of the principal purposes in establishing the Constitution was to "provide for the common defence." To that end, the States granted to Congress the several powers of Article I, Section 8, clauses 11 to 14 and 18, compendiously described as the "war power." Although these specific grants of power do not specifically enumerate every factor relevant to the power to conduct war, there is no limitation upon it (other than what the Due Process chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Possession by an American citizen of the rights and privileges that constitute citizenship imposes correlative obligations, of which the most indispensable may well be "to take his place in the ranks of the army of his country and risk the chance of being shot down in its defense," Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 197 U. S. 29. Harsh as this may sound, it is no more so than the actualities to which it responds. Can it be said that there is no chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The provision of the Articles of War under which petitioner was convicted for desertion, Art. 58, Articles of War, 41 Stat. 787, 800, does not mention the fact that one convicted of that offense in wartime should suffer the loss of his citizenship. It may be that stating all of the consequences of conduct in the statutory provision making it an offense is a desideratum in the administration of criminal justice; that can scarcely be said -- nor does petitioner contend that it ever has been said -- to be a constitutional requirement. It is not for us to require Congress to list in one statutory section not only the ordinary penal consequences of engaging in activities therein prohibited, but also the collateral disabilities that follow, by operation of law, from a conviction thereof duly resulting chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Compilation of War Department General Orders, Bulletins, and Circulars (Government Printing Office 1943) 343. That Congress must define in the rubric of the substantive crime all the consequences of conduct it has made a grave offense, and that it cannot provide for a collateral consequence, stern as it may be, by explicit pronouncement in another place on the statute books, is a claim that hardly rises to the dignity of a constitutional requirement. Petitioner contends that loss of citizenship is an unconstitutionally disproportionate "punishment" for desertion, and that it constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" within the scope of the Eighth Amendment. Loss of citizenship entails undoubtedly severe -- and, in particular situations, even tragic -- consequences. Divestment of citizenship by the Government has been characterized, in the context of denaturalization, as "more serious than a taking of one's property, or the imposition of a fine or other penalty." Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 320 U. S. 122. However, like denaturalization, see Klapprott v. United States, 335 U. S. 601, 335 U. S. 612, expatriation under the Nationality Act of 1940 is not "punishment" in any valid constitutional sense. Cf. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 149 U. S. 730. Simply because denationalization was attached by Congress as a consequence of conduct that it had elsewhere made unlawful, it does not follow that denationalization is a "punishment," any more than it can be said that loss of civil rights as a result of conviction for a felony, see Gathings, Loss of Citizenship and Civil Rights for Conviction of Crime, 43 Am.Pol.Sci.Rev. 1228, 1233, is a "punishment" for any legally significant purposes. The process of denationalization, as devised by the expert Cabinet Committee on which Congress quite properly chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Even assuming, arguendo, that § 401(g) can be said to impose "punishment," to insist that denationalization is "cruel and unusual" punishment is to stretch that concept beyond the breaking point. It seems scarcely arguable that loss of citizenship is within the Eighth Amendment's prohibition because disproportionate to an offense that is capital and has been so from the first year of Independence. Art. 58, supra; § 6, Art. 1, Articles of War of 1776, 5 J.Cont.Cong. (Ford ed.1906) 792. Is constitutional dialectic so empty of reason that it can be seriously urged that loss of citizenship is a fate worse than death? The seriousness of abandoning one's country when it is in the grip of mortal conflict precludes denial chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Many civilized nations impose loss of citizenship for indulgence in designated prohibited activities. See generally Laws Concerning Nationality, U.N. Doc. No. ST/LEG/SER.B/4 (1954). Although these provisions are often, but not always, applicable only to naturalized citizens, they are more nearly comparable to our expatriation law than to our denaturalization law. [Footnote 3/6] Some countries have made wartime desertion result in loss of citizenship -- native-born or naturalized. E.g., § 1(6), Philippine Commonwealth Act No. 63 of Oct. 21, 1936, as amended by Republic Act No. 106 of June 2, 1947, U.N. Doc., supra, at 379; see Borchard, Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad, 730. In this country, desertion has been punishable by loss of at least the "rights of citizenship" [Footnote 3/7] since 1865. The Court today reaffirms its decisions (Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U. S. 299; Savorgnan v. United States, 338 U. S. 491) sustaining the power of Congress to denationalize citizens who had no desire or intention to give up their citizenship. If loss of citizenship may constitutionally be made the consequence of such conduct as marrying a foreigner, and thus certainly not "cruel and unusual," it seems more than incongruous that such loss should be thought "cruel and unusual" when it is the consequence of conduct that is also a crime. In short, denationalization, when attached to the offense chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It misguides popular understanding of the judicial function and of the limited power of this Court in our democracy to suggest that, by not invalidating an Act of Congress, we would endanger the necessary subordination of the military to civil authority. This case, no doubt, derives from the consequence of a court-martial. But we are sitting in judgment not on the military, but on Congress. The military merely carried out a responsibility with which they were charged by Congress. Should the armed forces have ceased discharging wartime deserters because Congress attached the consequence it did to their performance of that responsibility? chanroblesvirtualawlibrary