Quock Ting v. United States

• Decision Date: 11 May 1891
• Citation: 35 L.Ed. 501,140 U.S. 417,11 S.Ct. 733
• Parties: QUOCK TING v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

140 U.S. 417

11 S.Ct. 733

35 L.Ed. 501

QUOCK TING v. UNITED STATES.

May 11, 1891.

[Statement of Case from pages 417-419 intentionally omitted] J. J. Scrivner, for appellant.

Asst. Atty. Gen. Parker, for the United States.

Mr. Justice FIELD, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

The question presented is whether the evidencer before the court below was sufficient to show that the petitioner was a citizen of the United States. The testimony given by himself amounted to very little; indeed, it was of no force or weight whatever. The particularity and positiveness with which he stated the place of his birth in San Francisco was evidently the result of instruction for his examination on this proceeding, and not a statement of what he had learned from his parents in years past. And his failure to mention any particulars as to the city of San Francisco, which he certainly ought to have been able to do if he resided there during the first 10 years of his life, was surprising. A boy of any intelligence, ariv ing at that age, would remember, even after the lapse of six years, some words of the language of the country, some names of streets or places, or some circumstances that would satisfy one that he had been in the city before. But there was nothing whatever of this kind shown. He gave the name of no person he had seen; he described no locality or incident relating to his life in the city, nor did he repeat a single word of the language, which he must have heard during the greater part of several years, if he was there. The testimony of the father was also devoid of any incident or circumstance corroborative of his statement. The production of the so-called store-book, in which there was an entry of passage-money paid for the boy and his mother, does not strike us as at all conclusive. The accounts of a mere worker on a sewing-machine would not be likely to occupy much space; and the alleged entry could as easily have been made as the manufacture of the story repeated. If we could not believe the story in the absence of the book, we should hesitate to yield credence to it upon the exhibition of the entry. If the petitioner was really born in the United States, and had lived there during the first 10 years of his life, the fact must have been known to some of the father's neighbors, and incidents could readily have been given which would have placed the statement of it beyond all question. It is incredible that a father would allow the exclusion of his son from the country where he lived, when proof of his son's birth and residence there for years could have been easily shown, if such in truth had been the fact. Undoubtedly, as a general rule, positive testimony as to a particular fact, uncontradicted by any one, should control the decision of the court; but that rule admits of many exceptions. There may be such an inherent improbability in the statements of a witness as to induce the court or jury to disregard his evidence, even in the...