Ah Sin v. George Wittman
| Decision Date | 29 May 1905 |
| Docket Number | No. 245,245 |
| Citation | 198 U.S. 500,49 L.Ed. 1142,25 S.Ct. 756 |
| Parties | AH SIN, Plff. in Err. , v. GEORGE W. WITTMAN, as Chief of Police of the City and County of San Francisco, California |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr.George D. Collins for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. L. F. Byington and I. Harris for defendant in error.
Error to the judgment of the superior court of the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, discharging a writ of habeas corpus.
Plaintiff in error filed a petition in said court, alleging that he was a subject of the Emperor of China, and was restrained of his liberty by defendant in error, who was the chief of police of the city and county of San Francisco, under a judgment of imprisonment rendered in the police court of said city for the violation of one of its ordinances. The ordinance is as follows: 'Prohibiting the Exposure of Gambling
Tables or Implements in a room Barred or Barricaded or Protected in Any Manner to Make It Difficult of Access or Ingress to Police Officers, When Three or More Persons Are Present; or the Visiting of a Room Barred and Barricaded or Protected in Any Manner to Make It Difficult of Access or Ingress to Police, in Which Gambling Tables or Implements Are Exhibited or Exposed, When Three or More Persons are Present.
cBe it ordained by the people of the city and county of San Francisco as foollows: and county of San Francisco as follows: within the limits of the city and county of San Francisco to exhibit or expose to view in any barred or barricaded house or room, or in any place built or protected in a manner to make it difficult of access or ingress to police officers, when three or more persons are present, any cards, dice, dominoes, fan-tan table or layout, or any part of such layout, or any gambling implements whatsoever.
'Sec. 4. this ordinance shall take effect and be in force on and after its passage.'
The complaint in the police court charges a violation of the ordinance by the plaintiff in error. The petition for writ of habeas corpus alleges that the ordinance violates § 1 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in that it deprives plaintiff in error of the equal protection of the laws, because it is enforced solely and exclusively against persons of the Chinese race, and in that it 'unjustly and arbitrarily discriminates in favor of certain visitors, and also in favor of certain persons resorting to the house, room, or place referred to in said ordinance, as well as in favor of such persons and visitors as resort to or visit such house or room or place when not barred or barricaded or protected in a manner to make the same difficult of access or ingress to police officers.' These objection, it is alleged, were made by him in the police court, and overruled.
The petition also alleges that plaintiff in error, is, by the ordinance, deprived of his liberty without due process of law, in that he is prohibited thereby from visiting, innocently and for a lawful purpose, the house or room or place mentioned in said ordinance.
It is also alleged that the ordinance is in contravention of the treaty between the United States and China.
Upon filing the petition a writ of habeas corpus was issued, returnable before the court on the 22d of March, 1904, and petitioner admitted to bail in the sum of $10.
The following is the order of the court dismissing the writ, and remanding the petitioner to custody:
Plaintiff in error's petition presents the question of the constitutionality of the ordinance under which he was convicted. Section I makes it unlawful for any person to exhibit any gambling implements whatsoever in any 'barred or barricaded house or room or other place built or protected in a manner to make it difficult of access or ingress to police oficers, where any cards, dice, dominoes, fan-tan table or layout, or any part of such layout, or any gambling implements whatsoever, are exhibited or...
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