United States v. Cantini

• Decision Date: 08 October 1912
• Docket Number: 2.
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. CANTINI.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

199 F. 857

UNITED STATES v. CANTINI.

No. 2.

United States District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.

October 8, 1912

H. S Lydick, Asst. Dist. Atty., of Pittsburgh, Pa., for the United states.

G. I Zsatkovich, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for defendant.

ORR District Judge.

This is a proceeding on the part of the United States for the cancellation of a certificate of naturalization issued to the defendant by this court. The contention of the United States as set forth in the bill, is that the certificate of naturalization was illegally procured, because the court was without jurisdiction, because the defendant within a period of five years immediately preceding the date of his certificate was for a time without the United States. There is no allegation that the defendant was party to any fraud or that the defendant concealed from the court which issued the certificate of naturalization any of the facts upon which the government now bases its present contention. All the material facts appear in the following averments of the answer:

'That I emigrated to the United States from Italy on March 17, 1899; that I continued physically to reside in the United States until September 5, 1908, at which time I went, as was shown and proved to the satisfaction of the district attorney for the United States for the Western district of Pennsylvania, Judge Orr presiding, to visit my parents, expecting to be back in three months; that at that time I requested my employers to retain my place for me; that owing to my marriage, and birth of a child, and other circumstances, my stay was prolonged, and that I returned to the United States on August 22, 1910; that I never abandoned, nor did I ever intend to abandon, my legal residence in the United States, nor did I at any time intend nor did establish a permanent residence outside of the United States; that I proved the foregoing by the testimony of myself and other witnesses, and satisfied the court at the hearing held on March 14, 1911.'

The United States has set this cause down for hearing upon bill and answer. Therefore the allegations in the answer are to be taken as true. Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244, 9 Sup.Ct. 36, 32 L.Ed. 425.

Prior to the passage of the act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 596, c. 3592 (U.S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 531)), which was intended to create a uniform system of naturalization, there was no way in which a certificate of naturalization could be attacked in a collateral proceeding. In Spratt v. Spratt, 4 Pet. 393, 408 (7 L.Ed. 897), Chief Justice Marshall says:

'The various acts upon the subject submit the decision on the right of aliens to admission as citizens to courts of record. They are to receive testimony, compare it with the law, and to judge upon both law and fact. This judgment is entered on record as the judgment of the court. It seems to us, if it be in legal form, to close all inquiry, and, like every other judgment, to be complete evidence of its own validity.'

The act of Congress above referred to recognizes the law to have been as stated by Chief Justice Marshall, because it provides in its fifteenth section a means whereby a certificate of citizenship may be canceled. That section provides:

'That it shall be the duty of the United States district attorneys for the respective districts, upon affidavit showing good cause therefor, to institute proceedings in any court having jurisdiction to naturalize aliens in the judicial district in which the naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing the suit, for the purpose of setting aside and canceling the certificate of citizenship on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such certificate of citizenship was illegally procured.'

There are other provisions in the section relating to process, which are not necessary to be mentioned. This section has been declared to be constitutional by the Supreme Court in Johannessen v. United States, 225 U.S. 227, 32 Sup.Ct. 613, 56 L.Ed. 1066. This court has jurisdiction of the present proceeding.

There remains but the single question whether or not it had jurisdiction to admit the defendant to citizenship upon all the facts as they are stated in his answer. The contention on the part of the government is that the court should not have issued the certificate of naturalization, because the defendant had not been continuously within the United States during the five years preceding the date of the certificate. The Naturalization Act provides in the fourth paragraph of section 4:

'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 within the state or territory where such court is at the time held one year 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 addition to the oath of the applicant,

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