Urszulia Zakonaite v. Casper Wolf

• Decision Date: 02 December 1912
• Docket Number: No. 53,53
• Citation: Urszulia Zakonaite v. Casper Wolf, 226 U.S. 272, 33 S.Ct. 31, 57 L.Ed. 218 (1912)
• Parties: URSZULIA ZAKONAITE, Appt., v. CASPER J. WOLF, Jailor of the City of St. Louis
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

226 U.S. 272

33 S.Ct. 31

57 L.Ed. 218

URSZULIA ZAKONAITE, Appt.,

v CASPER J. WOLF, Jailor of the City of St. Louis.

No. 53.

Argued November 14, 1912.

Decided December 2, 1912.

Messrs. L. G. Pope, Charles F. Joy, and Hy. B. Davis for appellant.

Assistant Attorney General Harr for appellee.

Memorandum opinion, by direction of the court, by Mr. Justice Pitney:

The appellant, having been arrested and held in custody under warrants of arrest and deportation issued by the Acting Secretary of Commerce and Labor under the immigration act of February 20, 1907 [34 Stat. at L. 898, chap. 1134, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, p. 499], sought to be discharged upon habeas corpus issued out of the dis- trict court, and that court having upon hearing ordered the dismissal of the writ, she prosecutes this appeal.

From the return and supplemental return of the respondent it appears that the appellant is an alien, and that as the result of a hearing and rehearing conducted in compliance with rule 35, paragraph E of the Rules and Regulations of the Department of Commerce and Labor, she was found to be in the United States in violation of § 3 of the act referred to, and subject to deportation, in that she was a prostitute, and had been found practising prostitution within three years after her entry into the United States.

In her behalf it was contended in the court below, and is here contended, first, that there was no evidence before the Secretary of Commerce and Labor sufficient to warrant the findings of fact upon which the order of deportation was based; and, secondly, that § 3 of the act of February 20, 1907 (34 Stat. at L. 898, 899, chap. 1134, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, pp. 499, 502), which provides that 'any alien woman or girl who shall be found an inmate of a house of prostitution or practising prostitution, at any time within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall be deemed to be unlawfully within the United States, and shall be deported as provided by sections twenty and twenty-one of this act,'—is unconstitutional because violative of the guaranties that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, as contained in the 5th and 6th Amendments.

As to the first point, an examination of the evidence upon which the order of deportation was based convinces us that it was adequate to support the Secretary's con- clusion of fact. That being so, and the appellant having had a fair hearing, the findings are not subject to review by the courts.

With respect to the second point little more need be said. It is entirely...