In re Centi

• Decision Date: 01 October 1914
• Docket Number: 157.
• Citation: 217 F. 833
• Parties: In re CENTI.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

217 F. 833

In re CENTI.

No. 157.

United States District Court, W.D. Tennessee, Western Division.

October 1, 1914

Casey Todd, of Memphis, Tenn., for petitioner.

Yandell Haun, Asst. U.S. Atty., of Memphis, Tenn., for the United States.

McCALL District Judge.

On June 9, 1914, Bartolomeo Centi filed his petition for naturalization, based upon a declaration of intention made May 12, 1910. On September 7, 1914, the United States through its District Attorney, filed a plea in bar to the petition for naturalization, and alleged 'that on the 17th day of May, 1912, the petitioner filed a petition in this court to be naturalized, and that on the 10th day of January, 1914, said cause came on to be and was heard by this court upon a petition and proof, when it appeared, among other things, that petitioner had repeatedly and for a number of years exercised the rights and privileges of the suffrage by voting in various elections held in Haywood county, Tenn while not a citizen of the United States and in violation of law. Whereupon the court refused to grant the petitioner the relief sought, and refused to order issued to him a certificate of naturalization, admitting him to citizenship and to become a citizen of the United States, and dismissed the said petition, and a decree in accordance was entered which decree was never appealed from, and has never been set aside. In re Centi (D.C.) 211 F. 559. Wherefore the United States says that the matters and things contained in the present petition have heretofore been adjudicated by this court, and are now res adjudicata, as between the petitioner and the United States of America, they being the identical parties to both proceedings, involving the same matters; and the United States relies upon and expressly pleads said adjudication as a bar to this petition, and as a bar to the relief sought thereunder.' The question raised by the plea is: What length of time must elapse from the date of an order denying, on the merits, a petition of an alien for naturalization, before he may properly file a second petition for naturalization?

There is a paucity of decisions relating to this question, and so far as I am advised none of the federal appellate courts have passed upon it. The fourth section of the Naturalization Act requires, among other things, that:

'It shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court admitting any alien to citizenship that immediately preceding the date of his application he has resided continuously within the United States five years at least, * * * and that during that time he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.'

In Re Centi, supra, it was held in January, 1914, that the conduct of the petitioner in this case did not comport with the requirement of section 4 of the Naturalization Act, supra and the certificate of naturalization was denied him, and his petition dismissed. His moral status, as that affects his qualification for naturalization, was thus fixed in January, 1914, and at that...