Court Opinion

ID: 9640712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:13:11.331858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:31.305048
License: Public Domain

BOOTH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I dissent. The suit is one to cancel a naturalization certificate on account of fraud. In suits of such character the evidence must be clear, unequivocal, and convincing. United States v. Budd, 144 U. S. 154, 12 S. Ct. 575, 36 L. Ed. 384; United States v. Knight (D. C.) 291 F. 129, affirmed (C. C. A.) 299 F. 571. The evidence in the case at bar does not, in my opinion, measure up to the required standard. Even conceding that acts of the appellant committed after the date of his naturalization were competent evidence to prove Ms state of mind on that date, yet the probative value of such acts naturally diminishes as the length of time increases. The acts of appellant here in question took place *700from IV2 to 2% years after he was naturalized.
The presumption that the state of his mind when he was naturalized was the same as when he committed the acts in question, is, in my opinion, too weak to serve as a basis upon which to predicate fraud. The majority opinion seems to recognize, although rather reluctantly, the weakness of this presumption. Accordingly an attempt is made to buttress the evidence as to the subsequent acts of appellant by evidence of the fact that 13 months before he was naturalized he committed an offense against the prohibition laws of the state, which was also an offense against the National Prohibition Act.
Let it be conceded that evidence of this prior act also was competent and relevant on the issue of the state of mind of appellant on the date of his naturalization. Yet here again it seems to me that the presumption that his state of mind at the time of this prior act continued,- and was the same on the date of his naturalization, is too weak to serve as a basis upon which to predicate fraud.
Furthermore, the foregoing does not portray the whole situation. The record shows that at the time of appellant’s naturalization he admitted to the state court this prior offense^ that he also disclosed to the state court the facts and circumstances surrounding and extenuating this prior offense. The state court, with full knowledge of-the facts, admitted appellant to citizenship. What the facts and circumstances were which surrounded the prior offense we do not know. They do not appear from the record before us. But that they were important and of weight would seem to be indicated by the fact of the entry of judgment by the state court, and by the presumption of regularity and validity which attaches to the judgment.
The grave objection to the position of the majority of the court as shown by their opinion, lies, it seems to me, in this: That full weight is accorded to the prior offense as a bare, unexplained fact, notwithstanding that it did not stand as a bare, unexplained fact in the state court. The giving of such unaffected and undiminished weight to the fact of the prior offense seems to be hardly fair to that court or to the appellant, and leads to a result of doubtful validity. This court, though aware that it is without knowledge of some presumably important and relevant facts in the case, yet reaches the conclusion that the state court has been defrauded, and that the appellant has been guilty of the fraud.
The decree of cancellation, under these circumstances, will, I fear, lay itself open to the charge that its real basis is not fraud committed on the state court, but the offenses committed by appellant subsequent to his naturalization. Such a ground for cancellation does not exist at present. If such a ground be desirable, it should he created by congressional rather than judicial legislation.