Court Opinion

ID: 9481256
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:12:19.889034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:10.644568
License: Public Domain

PELL, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case involves the cancellation of what the majority correctly terms the “precious right” of citizenship. Because I do not believe the resolution of that issue in this case by summary judgment was appropriate, I respectfully dissent.
There is substantial reference in the record of this case to the depths of depravity to which the Third Reich descended. No one disputes that now. The question before this court, however, in a sense, is the extent, if any, that Schmidt was smeared by the evil brush of the governmental activities inside Sachsenhausen.
The record is, of course, sparse because this case is here without a trial. But there is no evidence that this defendant participated in any wrongful act toward any prisoner; there is affirmative evidence that he was never inside Sachsenhausen prison camp; there is affirmative evidence that he was a work-party guard and that he obeyed the regulation which forbade mistreatment of prisoners on work parties; and there is affirmative evidence that his service to the Third Reich of Germany, not his native country, in World War II was hardly “voluntary.” It was, accepting all of this, the district court’s judgment that a violation was shown solely on the basis of participation as a guard outside the walls of the camp.
It may well be that summary judgment can be appropriate in a denaturalization case involving a claimed defective entry visa under the Displaced Persons Act. The majority opinion so states when there are no genuine issues of triable fact, citing United States v. Dercacz, 530 F.Supp. 1348, 1350-51 (E.D.N.Y.1982). In that case, however, Dercacz testified himself to the effect that he had assisted in persecution.
In the case before us, the only straw that would appear to seem to suggest Schmidt had some idea that some of the work prisoners were persecuted because of beliefs would be found in that he knew from their triangles that they were homosexuals. But, as his counsel pointed out, homosexuals were jailed in some of the states of this country at that very period of time.
The district court in its ruling found it did not make any difference whether Schmidt had knowledge or not. I disagree. As a matter of what was involved in the Displaced Persons Act, I cannot conceive how a person can be rendering assistance in persecution without some showable knowledge, or at the very least evidence of facts known to him which could lead only to a conclusion that the work prisoners were being persecuted. Schmidt, in my opinion, as a citizen was entitled to a trial on the issue of knowledge.
Cases interpreting Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490, 101 S.Ct. 737, 66 L.Ed.2d 686 (1981), hold (while finding) that “in order to establish ‘participation’ or ‘assistance’ the act of participation must involve some personal activity involving persecution.” United States v. Osidach, 513 F.Supp. 51, 72 (E.D.Pa.1981). The Ninth Circuit reads “assist” in these words:
“personal active assistance or participation in persecutorial acts_” (Laipenieks v. INS, 750 F.2d 1427, 1432 (9th Cir.1985).
Fedorenko does not hold otherwise; in both examples given (the barber and the guard who shoots) knowledge is presumed, unlike the present case in which there is no factual basis supporting knowledge. The court’s holding was based simply on the fact that the haircutting did not rise to the level of “assistance in persecution.” Fe-dorenko is not a case holding that “knowledge” is not an element of “assistance.” Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. at *1261512, note 34, 101 S.Ct. at 750, note 34; Kungys v. United States, 485 U.S. 759, 767, 108 S.Ct. 1537, 1544, 99 L.Ed.2d 839 (1988).
It is true that this concept of “assistance” is not “capable of a precise definition” (United States v. Sprogis, 763 F.2d 115, 121 (2d Cir.1985)), but it is also true that the “facts and the law should be construed as far as is reasonably possible in favor of the citizen.... ” Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 122, 63 S.Ct. 1333, 1335, 87 L.Ed. 1796 (1943).
The Government relied on Kulle v. INS, 825 F.2d 1188 (7th Cir.1987) as holding that there is no requirement of “knowledge” for “assisting.”
Sergeant Kulle was deported on a record that included this question and answer (825 F.2d at 1195):
Q. Okay, was it your understanding at the time you made these lies, that if you had told the truth about your SS service you would have been denied admission to the United States?
A. That’s correct.
Kulle had denied SS service. Schmidt put it on his application. Kulle was decorated with the Iron Cross (825 F.2d at 1190); Schmidt’s service record shows nothing except that he came and went as a private, with no decorations. Kulle was a training leader, Schmidt was not. Kulle participated in a forced evacuation from a camp in the East to Mauthausen. Schmidt did not. The Court distinguished a “deportation” case from a denaturalization case (such as Schmidt’s) (825 F.2d at 1193), and, with Kulle’s admitted lies, ordered him deported.
As in Schellong v. INS, 805 F.2d 655 (7th Cir.1986), this court held that Kulle (on a trial record) had enough knowledge to be found to have assisted in persecution. In the present case, the facts in the record developed thus far did not reach the point of establishing knowledge on the part of Schmidt. In Kulle, a judgment was made on the basis of an INS record after a hearing at which Kulle's attorney was granted cross examination. Schmidt is to lose his citizenship without a fact hearing.
It may be at a trial, the trier of fact, evaluating the credibility of witnesses, might conclude that it is incredible that Schmidt during the relatively short period he was an outside guard could not help being aware that he was assisting in persecution. But that is a matter of credibility. Schmidt did not have such a chance. One might now think it is incredible that a presumably intelligent airline pilot could believe in good faith that the Internal Revenue Act is unconstitutional. Cheek v. United States, — U.S.-, 111 S.Ct. 604, 112 L.Ed.2d 617 (1991). He, however, was entitled to a fair trial and so should Schmidt be. Our system of justice that guilt should not be predicated on anything less than a fair trial is too important to tolerate any deviation or diminution.