Court Opinion

ID: 9444501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:02:42.623382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:53.615341
License: Public Domain

BONE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
It seems to me that our decision in this case not only discredits, but virtually overrules, our decision in Del Guercio v. Pupko, 9 Cir., 160 F.2d 799. I agree with appellant that the only (and decisive) issue before us is whether appel-lee’s false testimony (under oath) during his naturalization proceeding, is a bar to his naturalization. That such false testimony was given is crystal clear. About the only explanation tendered in the lower court was that appellee was ashamed to admit his various arrests (for intoxication) save and except in one instance.
An examination of our Pupko decision will reveal that it is on all fours with the instant case so far as concerns the controlling legal issue before us. That decision shows that the arrest which *847Pupko concealed from the Naturalization Service was not for a major offense.
I suspect that by “walking around” our Pupko doctrine we will hereafter make a right to naturalization in this Circuit depend in no small measure upon how successfully an applicant appearing before a district court can explain away perjured testimony which concealed information which the government was clearly entitled to have during the administrative process.
The government has cited a long list of cases illustrating and approving the rule to which we gave full sanction in Pupko. I would adhere to that rule despite a natural sympathy for one whose several arrests (as the government frankly admits) would not necessarily bar him from naturalization. That aspect was present in the Pupko case. See also United States v. Kessler, 104 F. Supp. 434.
For these reasons I would reverse the order of the lower court.