Court Opinion

ID: 9651595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:28:25.722975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:36.541783
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, District Judge
(dissenting). 'The examination of the entire record in this, ease convinces me, not only that the District Judge was correct in finding that Leong Don was Leong Goon’s son, and that there was no evidence of a substantial character to warrant the finding of the Commissioner, but that the entire proceedings were such as that they showed that the authority was not fairly exercised, consistently with the fundamental principles of justice, embraced within due process of law. Tang Tun v. Edsell, 223 U. S. 673, 32 S. Ct, 359, 56 L. Ed. 606.
It is a fundamental principle of due process that no judicial or quasi judicial hearing is valid, where the maxim “audi alteram partem” is ignored, and it is therefore of the essence of a valid judgment that the body which pronounces it shall not in any manner prejudge or predetermine the issue. Sir Walter Scott, in Ivanhoe, causes one of his *137characters to say: “The trial moves on apace, when the judge has determined his decision beforehand.” The record in this case leaves no room for doubt that such a prejudgment had occurred.
At the outset of the proceedings an attempt was made to exclude the applicant on grounds inapplicable to him, and, this attempt failing, the proceedings thereafter were conducted in a spirit of inquisition to exclude, rather than an inquiry into the facts as to the right of exclusion, in which proceedings the examiner was in the attitude of an inquisitor, rather than of a judge, which attitude explains a judgment so contrary to the living facts arrived at by the Oommissioner in this case. While, the decision of the Secretary of Labor of such questions as we have here is final and conclusive on tile courts, unless it be shown that the proceedings are manifestly unfair, or were such as to prevent a fair investigation, it is fundamental that the decision must be after a hearing in good faith however summary. Chin Yow v. U. S., 208 U. S. 8, 28 S. Ct. 201, 52 L. Ed. 369. It must find its support in adequate evidence. Zakonaite v. Wolf, 226 U. S. 272, 33 S. Ct. 31, 57 L. Ed. 218; Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U. S. 458, 40 S. Ct. 566, 64 L. Ed. 1010; Tisi v. Tod, 264 U. S. 134, 44 S. Ct. 260, 68 L. Ed. 590; Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U. S. 153, 44 S. Ct. 54, 68 L. Ed. 221.
In Kwock Jan Eat v. White, 253 U. S. 454, 40 S. Ct. 566, 64 L. Ed. 1010, in which the court reversed the finding because the proceeding had been conducted in a partisan way, by concealing some of the evidence in the possession of the Commissioner from the deportee, the court said:
“The acts of Congress give great power to the Secretary of Labor over Chinese immigrants and persons of Chinese descent. It is a power to be administered, not arbitrarily and secretly, but fairly and openly, under the restraints, of the tradition and principles of free government, applicable where the fundamental rights of men are involved, regardless of their origin or race. It is the province of the courts, in proceedings for review, within the limits amply defined in the eases cited, to. prevent abuse of this extraordinary power, and this is possible only when a full record is preserved of the essentials on which the executive officers proceed to judgment. * *' * It is better that many Chinese immigrants should he improperly admitted, than that one natural horn citizen of the United States should he permanently excluded from his country.” (Italics mine.)
An examination of the record in this case as to the identity of Don as the son of Goon, fortified as it is by affidavits taken in other proceedings more than 12 years before this controversy arose, by the positive oaths of the father and two sons taken on this hearing and rebutted by nothing except the inability of the applicant to answer satisfactorily a series of questions on matters entirely and remotely collateral to the main fact of his sonship, leaves no doubt in my mind that the hearing was not a hearing, but an inquisition, and that the finding was predetermined in advance of the hearing.
So believing, I am constrained to dissent from the conclusions of the majority.