United States v. Lew Poy Dew

• Decision Date: 24 January 1903
• Citation: 119 F. 786
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. LEW POY DEW.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

119 F. 786

UNITED STATES v. LEW POY DEW.

United States District Court, N.D. New York.

January 24, 1903

Geo. B Curtiss, U.S. Dist. Atty.

R. M Moore, for defendant.

Appeal from Judgment of United States Commissioner.

The defendant appeals from a judgment of deportation made by Benjamin L. Wells, as United States commissioner for the Northern district of New York, on the 31st day of October 1902. This judgment, after fully reciting the proceedings adjudges as follows: 'I now hereby find and adjudge that the said Lew Poy Dew is a Chinese person and a laborer, is not a citizen of the United States, that he is not a diplomatic or other officer of the Chinese or any other government, and that he unlawfully entered the United States as charged in said complaint. And I further adjudge him, said Lew Poy Dew, guilty of not being lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States. I further find and adjudge that he, said Lew Poy Dew, came from the dominion of canada; but he has not made it appear to me that he was a subject or a citizen of some other country than China. I further find and adjudge that he, said Lew Poy Dew, entered the United States on or about the 23d day of July, 1902, without having a certificate, required by law, entitling him to enter the United States. Then follows the clause ordering deportation, etc. The appeal rests upon alleged error in rejecting a certificate presented by the defendant on the trial and offered in evidence. The certificate is in the words and figures following:

'United States of America, District of Vermont.

'Before me, Felix W. McGettrick, a commissioner of the circuit court of the United States within and for said district, complaint was presented by John H. Senter, United States attorney within and for said district, charging in substance that on or about the 1st day of June, 1897, at Richford, Vt., in said district, Lew Poy Dew, in violation of section-- of the Revised Statutes of the United States, did unlawfully come and was in the United States, and on the 1st day of June, 1897, defendant was brought before me, the said commissioner, at my office in St. Albans, in said district, and upon full hearing on said charge, the said district attorney being present, it was adjudged by me that said Lew Poy Dew had the lawful right to be and remain in the United States, and he was accordingly discharged.

'Given under my hand and seal at St. Albans, in the district of Vermont, this 1st day of June, 1897.

Felix W. McGettrick,

'United States Commissioner for the District of Vermont.'

The defendant offered no other evidence as to his right to be or remain in the United States. On the hearing before the commissioner the defendant by his counsel admitted 'that the defendant is a Chinese person, not a member of the exempt class, that he came into the United States from the dominion of Canada, and was apprehended as charged in the complaints and warrants in these cases. ' The complaint and warrant charges 'that on or about the 23d day of July, A.D. 1902, at Burke N.Y., in said district (Northern district of New York), Lew Poy Dew, a Chinese person and laborer, in violation of the Chinese exclusion laws and of the Revised Statutes of the United States, did unlawfully enter, and was then and there found not lawfully in, the United States of America, contrary to the form of the statute of the United States of America in such case made and provided.'

RAY, District Judge (after stating the facts as above).

The question presented on this appeal is whether the certificate above recited was admissible in evidence for any purpose. The defendant relied upon it as evidence or proof that it has been duly adjudicated by a competent tribunal or officer that on the 1st day of June, 1897, the defendant, Lew Poy Dew, did not unlawfully come into, and was not then unlawfully within, the United States, and that he had the lawful right to be and remain in the United States. This certificate is not, and does not purport to be, the judgment or decision of the United States commissioner, Felix W. McGettrick, or a copy thereof. It is a mere recital of certain alleged official acts or transactions of McGettrick as United States commissioner, and of certain time adjudged and determined that certain facts did or did not exist, and had given judgment accordingly. This certificate does not purport to be a copy or a transcript of any decision made, or of any judgment rendered, in any legal proceeding. It is not a certificate authorized by any law, and therefore not an official act of said commissioner. It is not a return or statement made to any official or department of the government, but merely a roving general certificate, and is not more evidence in a court of justice to establish the facts recited than would be a letter form the clerk of a court to the complainant in an action that he had entered a judgment, reciting its terms, in his favor on a certain day.

The judgment or determination of a court, or of an officer thereof authorized to render one, may be proved in two ways: But the original records duly identified, and, if from another court, duly proved; or by a duly certified and authenticated copy. Society v. Spiro, 37 C.C.A. 338, 94 F. 750. O'hara v. Railroad Co., 22 C.C.A. 512, 76 F. 718. Such is the rule in the various states. Handly v. Greene, 15 Barb. 602; Baker v. Kingsland, 10 Paige, 366; Lansing v. Russel, 3 Barb.Ch. 325. These cases state the rule as held and applied in the courts of the United States.

In Society v. Spiro, supra, the court says that section 905, Rev. St. (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 677), has no application to the proof of judgments of the United States courts rendered in one jurisdiction in those of another. But in O'hara v. Railroad Co., supra, it is stated that it is the uniform practice to follow the requirements of that section in authenticating the records of the United States courts.

In Turnbull v. Payson, 95 U.S. 418, 24 L.Ed. 437, it is held:

'The record of a district court of the United States is not within the act of congress approved May 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 122), prescribing the mode in which the records and judicial proceedings of the state courts shall be authenticated, but is, when duly certified by the clerk under its seal, admissible as evidence in every other court of the United States.'

Says the court:

'Circuit and district courts of the United States certainly cannot be considered as foreign in any sense of the term, either in respect to the state courts in which they sit, or as respects the circuit or district court of another circuit or district. On the contrary, they are domestic tribunals, whose proceedings all other courts of the country are bound to respect, when authenticated by the certificate of the clerk under the seal of the court; the rule being that the circuit court of one circuit, or the district court of one district is presumed to know the seal of the...