Sweet v. United States, 11794
| Decision Date | 19 February 1954 |
| Docket Number | 11841,11912.,No. 11794,11794 |
| Citation | 211 F.2d 118 |
| Parties | SWEET v. UNITED STATES. CHOMIAK v. UNITED STATES. CHARNOWOLA v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
George W. Crockett, Jr., Detroit, Mich., Ernest Goodman and Goodman, Crockett, Eden & Robb, Detroit, Mich., Blanch Freedman, New York, N. Y., on brief, for appellants.
Dwight K. Hamborsky, Detroit, Mich., Fred W. Kaess, Joseph Sureck, Detroit, Mich., on brief, for appellee.
Before ALLEN, MARTIN and McALLISTER, Circuit Judges.
In these three denaturalization proceedings, argued together on appeal though tried before different United States District Judges in the Eastern District of Michigan, the naturalization orders admitting the respective appellants to citizenship were revoked and set aside and the certificates of naturalization issued to them were cancelled and held to be null and void.
Each of the three cases related to the applicability and effect, in the circumstances presented, of the Nationality Code of 1940, § 705, Title 8 U.S.C.A.,1 which forbade the naturalization as a citizen of the United States of anyone who had at any time within a period of ten years immediately preceding the filing of his or her petition for naturalization been a member of or affiliated with any organization, association, society, or group which believes in, advises, advocates, or teaches the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States. The statute also provides that it should apply to any person found to be within any of the classes enumerated, notwithstanding that at the time the petition was filed he might not be included in such class.
The able and experienced district judge in each of the three cases filed a succinct opinion stating the reasons for his decision.
In No. 11,794, the Sam Sweet case, District Judge Levin found the evidence convincing that the defendant had been for some time during the ten-year period prior to his naturalization a member of the Communist Party of the United States. This finding of fact was based upon substantial evidence and is not clearly erroneous. Judge Levin found further, on the basis of evidence amply supporting the finding, that the Communist Party of the United States was, during the period in question, an organization that advised, taught, and advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence. He found, too, that the testimony left no doubt that the defendant had concealed his history of Communist Party membership from the naturalization authorities and had thereby thwarted inquiry into his eligibility for naturalization. The Judge stated correctly that the Supreme Court had made it clear that fraud as a statutory ground for denaturalization need not be extrinsic, as contended by counsel for the defendant. Knauer v. United States, 328 U.S. 654, 66 S.Ct. 1304, 90 L.Ed. 1500. It was declared that the evidence introduced met the test required by Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 63 S.Ct. 1333, 87 L.Ed. 1796, inasmuch as it supported clear findings and constituted unequivocal proof that the defendant had been, during a portion of the ten-year period preceding his naturalization, a member of an organization which advised, taught and advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence. The Court was not concerned, as in the Schneiderman case and in Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665, 64 S.Ct. 1240, 88 L.Ed. 1525, with the state of mind of the defendant at the time of naturalization, "a condition necessarily difficult to ascertain and prove, but with an objective fact which may be established with that degree of proof necessary to convince reasonable minds." 106 F.Supp. 635
This court is of opinion that Judge Levin's decision rested upon sound grounds and should be upheld.
In No. 11,841, the Nicholai Chomiak case, Judge Thornton found the evidence convincing that the defendant had been a member of the Communist Party of the United States from 1933 to 1938 and that, during such period, the Communist Party was an organization which believed in, advised, advocated and taught the overthrow by force and violence of the Government of the United States. Wherefore, the United States District Judge held the defendant to be a person who was prohibited by statute from becoming a naturalized citizen and one whose naturalization had not been issued in accordance with statutory requirements. He cited United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U.S. 472, 475, 37 S.Ct. 422,...
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