United States v. Williams

• Decision Date: 15 February 1913
• Citation: 203 F. 155
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. CASTRO v. WILLIAMS, U.S. Com'r of Immigration, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

203 F. 155

UNITED STATES ex rel. CASTRO v. WILLIAMS, U.S. Com'r of Immigration, et al.

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

February 15, 1913

Geo Gordon Battle, of New York City, for relator.

Henry A. Wise, of New York City, for respondent.

WARD Circuit Judge.

Aliens have the right to enter the United States except so far as the right is restricted by our statutes. Section 2, Act Cong Feb. 20, 1907, c. 1134, 34 Stat. 898 (U.S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 500), defines in separate classes the aliens that are to be excluded. The burden is upon the immigration authorities to show that any alien denied the right to enter does fall within one of these exceptions to the general privilege. Although an alien who has not yet entered may not enjoy the constitutional guaranties of citizens, he has rights under this law which must be respected.

The board of special inquiry has held, and its decision has been affirmed upon appeal to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor that Gen. Castro shall be excluded because he has admitted the commission of a crime involving moral turpitude, viz the murder of Gen. Paredes, and therefore falls within the excluded class of 'persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude.'

It is to be noted that Congress has required in respect to this particular class of aliens proof of a specified kind and no other, viz., either a conviction in the country where the crime was committed or an admission by the alien. There is no pretense of any conviction, and I think ordinary proof is not sufficient. Testimony of unimpeached eyewitnesses that they had seen Gen. Castro kill Gen. Paredes with his own hand in cold blood would not only be insufficient, but would be wholly incompetent. Therefore telegrams passing between the state department and its representative at Caracas upon which the board relied are not evidence whatever to connect Gen. Castro with the death of Gen. Paredes. When examined before the special board, he had the right to insist that the proof on this point be restricted to that required by the act, viz., his own admission. This provision must have been intended as a limitation upon the power of the immigration authorities. It deprives them of the right to try the question of guilt at all. So it is a privilege to aliens because it insures them against any such trial. This privilege is entirely taken away if an admission may be rested upon presumptions arising from the alien's refusing to answer questions on the subject when under examination. I think the act contemplates an explicit and voluntary admission. The same kind of reasoning as is here relied upon by the government was passed upon by the Supreme Court in respect to the degree of proof in Chaffee v. United States, 18 Wall. 516, 21 L.Ed. 908. There the trial judge instructed the jury that, although the government was obliged to prove the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, still, if it had made out merely a prima facie case, the jury might, if the defendants did not meet it by producing their own books or taking the stand, arrive at the conclusion that there was no reasonable doubt by relying upon the presumption that they would have taken the stand or produced their books if their testimony or their books would have been favorable to them. The Supreme Court held that this doctrine would turn the defendants' constitutional right not to testify, intended for their protection, into an engine for their sure destruction:

'The purport of all this was to tell the jury that, although the defendants must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, yet if the government had made out a prima facie case against them, not one free from all doubt, but one which disclosed circumstances requiring explanation, and the defendants did not explain, the perplexing question of their guilt need not disturb the minds of the jurors. Their silence supplied in the presumptions of the law that full proof which should dispel all reasonable doubt. In other words, the court instructed the jury, in substance, that the government need only prove that the defendants were presumptively guilty, and the duty thereupon devolved upon them to establish their innocence, and, if they did not, they were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We do not think it at all necessary to go into any argument to show the error of this instruction. The error is palpable on its statement. All the authorities condemn it. The case of Clifton v. United States, in 4 How. (242, 11 L.Ed. 957),

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