United States v. Spohrer

• Decision Date: 14 January 1910
• Citation: 175 F. 440
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. SPOHRER.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

175 F. 440

UNITED STATES v. SPOHRER.

United States Circuit Court, D. New Jersey.

January 14, 1910

John B. Vreeland, U.S. Dist. Atty.

Sommer Colby & Whiting and Charles L. Williams, for respondent.

CROSS District Judge.

On the 9th day of July, last, the government filed a petition in this court for the cancellation of a certificate of naturalization, with the decree relating thereto, issued October 24, 1884, to Joseph Spohrer, by the court of common pleas of Essex county, in the state of New Jersey. The substance of the petition is that Spohrer, being an alien and a subject of the Emperor of Germany, procured his certificate of naturalization by fraud, in that it was not true, as alleged, that he was a minor under the age of 18 years when he arrived in the United States, or that at the time of his application to be admitted to citizenship he had resided within the United States 3 years next preceding his arriving at the age of 21 years, or that at the time of his said application he had resided in the United States 5 years including the 3 years of his minority, and that consequently his certificate of citizenship was obtained from said court by fraud.

Spohrer the respondent, has demurred to the petition of the government, alleging the following grounds: That this court is without jurisdiction to grant the relief prayed for, because the fraud alleged in its petition appears by the petition itself not to have been fraud, collateral or extrinsic, to the matter adjudicated upon by the court of common pleas of the county of Essex in the proceedings had before said court which resulted in admitting the demurrant to the rights, privileges, and immunities of a free citizen of the United States; that the said decree of the said court had become final, and cannot now be opened by this court; and that the United States is barred by reason of its laches from the relief prayed for in and by its petition.

This suit is instituted under section 15 of the naturalization law of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 601, c. 3592 (U.S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, p. 485)). The pertinent parts of said section follow:

'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. In any such proceedings the party holding the certificate of citizenship alleged to have been fraudulently or illegally procured shall have sixty days personal notice in which to make answer to the petition of the United States; and if the holder of such certificate be absent from the United States, or from the district in which he last had his residence, such notice shall be given by publication in the manner provided for the service of summons by publication or upon absentees by the laws of the state or the place where such suit is brought. * * * The provisions of this section shall apply not only to certificates of citizenship issued under the provisions of this act, but to all certificates of citizenship which may have been issued heretofore by any court exercising jurisdiction in naturalization proceedings under prior laws.'

The matter being before the court upon demurrer, the allegations of the petition are to be taken as admitted. The question presented, therefore, is whether the rights and privileges of citizenship can be obtained and held by one who, without any right under the law to be naturalized, nevertheless by means of fraud and perjury of a gross character has been able successfully to impose upon the court and induce favorable action upon his petition. That the respondent committed a fraud upon the court, upon the naturalization law, and upon the United States, under the admitted facts, cannot be gainsaid.

The power of naturalization is by the Constitution vested solely in Congress. That body, and that alone, can determine when, under what circumstances, by what court, and in favor of whom the power shall be exercised. At the time the respondent applied for naturalization, section 2170 of the Revised Statutes (U.S. comp. St. 1901, p. 1333) was in force, and provided that:

'No alien shall be admitted to become a citizen who has not, for the continued term of five years, next preceding his admission, resided within the United States.'

Section 2165 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1329) provided that:

'An alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following manner, and not otherwise.'

Such being the law, no court was authorized knowingly to naturalize any person who had not continuously resided therein for five years next preceding his admission to naturalization. This was made a jurisdictional fact. Action taken by a naturalization court in contravention of that provision would be open to direct, although not to collateral, attack, unless the proceedings were irregular upon their face. It should be borne in mind that in naturalization proceedings there are no parties or attorneys of record, nor is any process issued, or any one brought into court. In other words, it is not a controversial proceeding. In the Case of Stern, 13 Ops.Atty.Gen. 376, in dealing with a naturalization matter, the Attorney General said:

'But recitations in the record of matters of fact are binding only upon the parties to the proceedings and privies. The government of the United States was no party, and stands in privity with no party, to these proceedings, and it is not in the power of Mr. Stern by erroneous recitations in ex parte proceedings to conclude the government as to matters of fact.'

An alien friend is offered under certain conditions the privilege of citizenship. He may accept the offer and become a citizen upon compliance with the prescribed conditions, but not otherwise. His claim is of favor, not of right. He can only become a citizen upon and after a strict compliance with the acts of Congress. An applicant for this high privilege is bound, therefore, to conform to the terms upon which alone the right he seeks can be conferred. It is his province, and he is bound, to see that the jurisdictional facts upon which the grant is predicated actually exist, and if they do not he takes nothing by his paper grant. Fraud cannot be substituted for facts. No question is made in this case, and none could be, that the court which granted the certificate of naturalization to the respondent was duly authorized by Congress to act in matters of naturalization.

Counsel for the respondent, however, contends as follows:

'That the court of common pleas had jurisdiction to pass the decree of naturalization; that in so doing it acted as a state court; that such decree amounts to a judgment, and is entitled to all the sanctity and protection of a judgment; that a judgment of a court, after the term at which it was rendered has passed, cannot be opened up or vacated, either by the court itself which tendered the decree, or by another court acting on equitable principles, except for fraud which is extrinsic or collateral; and that, inasmuch as the fraud complained of in this case is not extrinsic or collateral, the judgment or decree cannot, upon common-law principles, be set aside.'

In support of their view they cite an extract from an opinion by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in Spratt v. Spratt, 4 Pet. 393, 407, 7 L.Ed. 897, in which he 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, to compare it with the law, and to judge on 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.'

In that case, however, the decree of naturalization was attacked collaterally, and because of that fact the decision is deemed not to have controlling force in the present controversy. The case most relied upon, however, by the respondent in support of his position, is United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U.S. 61, 25 L.Ed. 93, in which, as stated by the court in its opinion:

'The object of the bill is to have a decree of the court setting aside and declaring to be null and void a confirmation of the claim of W. A. Richardson under a Mexican grant to certain lands, made by the Board of Commissioners of Private Land Claims in California on the 27th day of December, 1853, and also the decree of the District Court of the United States, made February 11, 1856, affirming the decree of the Commissioners, and again confirming Richardson's claim. The general ground on which this relief is asked is that both these decrees were obtained by fraud.'

The bill in that case was filed more than 20 years after the rendition of the decree which it sought to have annulled. The decision, however, was not put upon the ground of laches, the court stating that the government was not bound by the statute of limitations as an individual would be, but upon the ground that fraud for which a bill to set aside a judgment or decree between the same parties, rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, will be sustained, is that which is extrinsic or collateral to the matter tried, and not a fraud which was in issue in the former suit. The court, however, after mentioning several exceptions to that general rule says:

'These and similar cases, which show that there has never been a real

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