Bindczyck v. Finucane/Opinion of the Court

On December 2, 1943, the Circuit Court of Frederick County, Maryland, issued a certificate of naturalization to petitioner after proceedings that conformed with the requirements of the Nationality Act of 1940. 54 Stat. 1137, 8 U.S.C. § 501 ff, 8 U.S.C.A. § 501 et seq. Seven days later, and at the same term of court, the Government moved to vacate and set aside the order of naturalization, claiming on evidence outside the record that it was obtained by fraud and that therefore the citizenship was illegally procured.

It is admitted that the requirements of § 338 of the Nationality Act, wherein Congress made specific provision for 'revoking * *  * the order admitting *  *  * to citizenship *  *  * on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such order *  *  * (was) illegally procured', were not followed. Instead, the Maryland court exercised its general power under Maryland law to set aside judgments during the term of court in which they were rendered.

We brought this case here to determine whether the requirements of § 338 control the revocation of citizenship on the ground of fraud or on the ground that it was illegally procured; or whether the grant of citizenship by the courts of the forty-eight States is subject to whatever summary control State courts may have over their merely local judgments. The questions are of obvious importance in the administration of the naturalization laws, apart from the conflict between the views of the court below and those of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in United States ex rel. Volpe v. Jordan, 161 F.2d 390.

The issue was raised by petitioner's action in the District Court for the District of Columbia for a judgment declaring him to be a citizen of the United States and for an order restraining respondents from deporting him. Upon a motion by the Government to dismiss the complaint, petitioner moved for summary judgment which was granted by the District Court, declaring petitioner 'to be a national and citizen of the United States' but 'without prejudice to the government's right to institute appropriate proceedings for denaturalization under Sec. 338 of the Nationality Act of 1940.' The Court of Appeals reversed, 87 U.S.App.D.C. 137, 184 F.2d 225, and we granted certiorari. 341 U.S. 919, 71 S.Ct. 742, 95 L.Ed. 1353.

Due regard for § 338, including the history of its origin, and for the nature of a judgment of naturalization, together with a consideration of the conflicting and capricious diversities of local law affecting the finality of local judgments, compel us to hold that § 338 is the exclusive procedure for canceling citizenship on the score of fraudulent or illegal procurement based on evidence outside the record.

Section 338 of the Nationality Act of 1940 is for our purpose the reenactment of § 15 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 596, 601. That Act was the culmination of half a century's agitation directed at naturalization frauds, particularly in their bearing upon the suffrage. On the basis of a nationwide survey to determine the incidence and causes of naturalization frauds with a view to devising recommendations for corrective legislation, President Theodore Roosevelt's Commission on Naturalization prepared a report which was the foundation of the Act of 1906. H.R.Doc.No.46, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. This report, the hearings before congressional committees and their reports, the floor debates on the proposed measure, leave no doubt that the target of legislation was fraudulent naturalization. It is equally clear that the remedy for the disclosed evil lay in the effective exercise of the power of Congress 'To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization'. U.S.Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 4.

To prevent fraud in a proceeding before a naturalization court, the Act devised a scheme of administrative oversight for the naturalization process. The Government was given the right to appear. § 11, 34 Stat. 596, 599. This right was fortified by requiring notice of the petition to the newly created Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and a ninety-day waiting period between the filing of the petition and the final hearing. §§ 6 and 12, 34 Stat. 596, 598 and 599. These were safeguards to enable verification by the Bureau of the facts alleged in the petition and investigation of the qualifications of the applicant for citizenship. By these provisions Congress recognized that enforcement is the heart of the law.

But Congress was not content to devise measures against fraud in procuring naturalization only. In § 15 of the Act of 1906 it formulated a carefully safeguarded method for denaturalization. Though the principal criticism leading to the enactment concerned the evils inherent in widely diverse naturalization procedures, experience was not wanting of the dangers and hardships attendant on haphazard denaturalization. Information was before Congress that ever since 1890 the then circuit courts had vacated naturalization orders at the suit of the Attorney General, although when the validity of § 15 was before it, this Court left open the question whether a court of equity had such power without express legislative authority. Johannessen v. United States, 225 U.S. 227, 240, 32 S.Ct. 613, 616, 56 L.Ed. 1066. But the revocation of citizenship before 1906 was not always surrounded by the safeguards of an original equity proceeding. See, e.g., Tinn v. United States District Attorney, 1906, 148 Cal. 773, 84 P. 152. Indeed, the history of the Act of 1906 makes clear that elections could be influenced by irregular denaturalizations as well as by fraudulent naturalizations. The only instance in the extensive legislative materials of vacation of naturalization orders by what appears to have been the procedure urged by the Government in this case involved just such a situation. A judge who had naturalized seven aliens on the supposition that they were members of his own political party promptly vacated his order when this supposition was corrected. See Rep.Atty.Gen. 394 (1903).

Significantly, floor action on § 15 in the House reveals a specific purpose to deprive the naturalizing court as such of power to revoke. The original bill authorized United States attorneys to institute revocation proceedings in the court issuing the certificate as well as in a court having jurisdiction to naturalize in the district of the naturalized citizen's residence. H.R.15442, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., § 17. A committee amendment adopted just before final passage put the section in the form in which it was enacted. That amendment, in the words of Congressman Bonynge, the manager of the bill, 'takes away the right to institute (a revocation proceeding) in the court out of which the certificate of citizenship may have been issued, unless the alien happens to reside within the jurisdiction of that court.' 40 Cong.Rec. 7874.

In the light of this legislative history we cannot escape the conclusion that in its detailed provisions for revoking a naturalization because of fraud or illegal procurement not appearing on the face of the record, Congress formulated a self-contained, exclusive procedure. With a view to protecting the Government against fraud while safeguarding citizenship from abrogation except by a clearly defined procedure, Congress insisted on the detailed, explicit provisions of § 15. To find that at the same time it left the same result to be achieved by the confused and conflicting medley, as we shall see, of State procedures for setting aside local judgments is to read congressional enactment without respect for reason.

Between them, these two sections, § 11 and § 15, provided a complete and exclusive framework for safeguarding citizenship against unqualified applicants. Under the first, the Government was given ample opportunity to interpose objections prior to the order of naturalization. If proper account was not taken of the evidence, the Government had recourse to appeal for examination of the action of the naturalizing court on the record. Tutun v. United States, 270 U.S. 568, 46 S.Ct. 425, 70 L.Ed. 738. Congress, however, thought that ninety days was quite enough time for the Government to develop its case-indeed many members deemed it too long. 40 Cong.Rec. 7766-7770. At the expiration of that time, if citizenship was granted, it was to be proof against attacks for fraud or illegal procurement based on evidence outside the record, except through the proceedings prescribed in § 15. The congressional scheme, providing carefully for the representation of the Government's interest before the grant of citizenship and a detailed, safeguarded procedure for attacking the decree on evidence of fraud outside the record, covers the whole ground. Every national interest is thereby protected.

Neither uncontested practice nor adjudication by lower courts has rendered a verdict which is disregarded by our construction of § 338. Nor as a rule for future conduct is any burden thereby placed on the Government in setting aside a naturalization order where it can prove illegality or fraud.

An abstract syllogism is pressed against this natural, because rational, treatment of § 338 as the exclusive and safeguarding procedure for voiding naturalizations granted after compliance with the careful formalities of § 334. Grant of citizenship is a judgment; a judgment is within the control of the issuing court during the court's term; therefore naturalization is subject to revocation for fraud or illegal procurement during the term of the court that granted it. So runs the argument. Such abstract reasoning is mechanical jurisprudence in its most glittering form. It disregards all those decisive considerations by which a provision like § 338 derives the meaning of life from the context of its generating forces and its purposes. It also disregards the capricious and haphazard results that would flow from applying such an empty syllogism to the actualities of judicial administration.

By giving State courts jurisdiction in naturalization cases, Congress empowered some thousand State court judges to adjudicate citizenship. If the requirements specifically defined in § 338 for revocation of citizenship were to be supplemented by State law regarding control over judgments by way of the 'term rule' or otherwise, the retention of citizenship would be contingent upon application of myriad discordant rules by a thousand judges scattered over the land.

Wide and whimsical diversities are revealed by the local law of the forty-eight States in the power of their courts to set aside local judgments. The courts of some States have no power to set aside their own judgments; courts in other States have almost unlimited power. Not only is there this great diversity among the States. There are capricious differences within individual States. That Congress, composed largely of lawyers, should have gone through the process of the elaborate definition in § 338 but impliedly also allowed denaturalization through the eccentricities and accidents of variegated State practice, is an assumption that ought to have a solider foundation than an abstract syllogism. Without more, we cannot believe that Congress would subject a naturalized citizen who has achieved that status only by the protecting formalities of the Nationality Act-to such unpredictable attack.

Finally, it is suggested that since § 15 was found not to prevent the taking of appeals from a naturalization order, Tutun v. United States, supra, and since there are diversities in the time for appeal among State courts with power to naturalize, the diversities among State courts in the power to vacate their own judgments ought not to require resort to § 338 as the exclusive, uniform procedure for denaturalization.

One answer is that the Act of 1906 and its successor, the Nationality Act of 1940, had no provision whatever as to appellate review of errors appearing of record in a naturalization court. On the other hand, Congress laboriously dealt with the revocation of naturalization obtained by fraud or otherwise illegally. And since appellate review is so ingrained a part of American justice, this Court in the Tutun case naturally held that it was not to be assumed that Congress denied the right of appeal merely because it did not affirmatively confer it. Of course there are differences among State judiciaries as to the time within which an appeal can be taken. But the differences are within a narrow and unimportant range compared with the enormous and quixotic differences relating to a court's control over its judgments on the score of fraud or illegality. It is one thing to allow some play for the joints in a statutory scheme like the Nationality Act, enforceable by both State and federal courts. It is quite another to inject a wholly dislocating factor by incorporating the diverse State rules for vacating judgments into the revocation process, which Congress specifically and comprehensively dealt with in § 338.

Congressional concern for uniformity in post-naturalization proceedings was shown in this very connection. The bill before Congress in 1906 provided for a uniform mode of appeal to the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals from naturalization judgments rendered by State, as well as federal, courts. H.R. 15442, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., § 13. Constitutional doubts and the practical problems which such an anomalous procedure would raise led to the omission of this section, leaving appeal procedure to the States. 40 Cong.Rec. 7784-7787. It is not to be supposed, however, that where, as with denaturalization, such doubts and anomalies were not present, Congress would gratuitously abandon the constitutional mandate to establish 'an uniform Rule of Naturalization.' It established such a rule in § 338.

Accordingly, the judgment below must be reversed and that of the District Court reinstated.

It is so ordered.

Judgment of Court of Appeals reversed and judgment of District Court reinstated.

Mr. Justice CLARK and Mr. Justice MINTON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice REED, joined by Mr. Justice BURTON, see 72 S.Ct. 138.

APPENDIX.

Power of State Courts to Vacate Their Own Judgments

The diversities in State rules governing the power to vacate judgments are illustrated by the following:

(1) The common law rule, still followed by many States, including Maryland, is that for the duration of the term in which the judgment is entered the court may entertain a motion to change it. This 'term rule' inevitably would produce erratic results as to naturalization:

(a) States differ very substantially in the length of court terms set by legislature or court. See 3 Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, 'Court Calendars' (1951). For example, in several counties of Kentucky the Circuit Court holds terms of only six days' duration; in contrast, the terms of the Oklahoma District Courts are six months in length.

(b) Even within a State the length of terms may vary greatly. Consider Indiana, for example. The Marion County (Indianapolis) Superior Court has monthly terms; some judges of the Lake County Superior Court hold terms lasting for six months.

(c) In a good many States the length of term may fluctuate with the amount of business that happens to be before the court, and with the untrammelled discretion of a judge in adjourning sine die. Unless adjourned sine die or concluded by the terminal date set by statute, a term, in general, ends only at the commencement of the next succeeding term held at the same place. See, e.g., Comes v. Comes, 1920, 190 Iowa 547, 178 N.W. 403; Hensley v. State, 1931, 53 Okl.Cr. 22, 3 P.2d 211. Thus, a term may be less than a day in length, or it might be a full year where the court has only one prescribed term annually.

(d) There is an inherent uncertainty in the 'term rule.' Consider a court with a prescribed or permitted term of ten months. E.g., Rhode Island Superior Court in Providence, R.I.Gen.Laws 1938, c. 498, § 2. A citizenship obtained by naturalization on the first day of the term might be vacated at any time within 10 months-under the reasoning of the Government; whereas the alien fortunate enough to be naturalized on the last day of the term would have citizenship indefeasibly except by the safe-guarded procedure of § 338.

(2) A number of States have statutes similar to that of Alabama reading: 'The circuit courts * *  * shall be open for the transaction of any and all business, or judicial proceedings of every kind, at all times.' Ala.Code 1940, Tit. 13, § 114. In those States wide disparity in the time within which a judgment may be vacated is introduced by the following circumstances: (a) Some of these States provide by statute that a court  has control of its judgments and may vacate them within   some fixed time; the times vary greatly:

Minnesota-Minn.Stat.1949, § 544.32, M.S.A.

Kentucky (courts in continuous session)-Ky.Rev.Stat.1946, §     451.130(1).

Alabama-Ala.Code 1940, Tit. 13, § 119.

Illinois-Ill.Rev.Stat.1949, c. 77, § 82.

Maryland (Baltimore City Court)-See Harvey v. Slacum, 1942,     181 Md. 206, 29 A.2d 276.

New Mexico-N.M.Stat.1941, § 19-901.

(b) Other States provide that only the motion for setting     aside the judgment need be filed within a fixed period; the      length of these periods also varies considerably:

'A reasonable time not exceeding six months:'

Arizona-Ariz.Code Ann.1939, § 21-1502.

California-Deering's Cal.Code Civ.Proc.1949, § 473.

Nevada-See Lauer v. Eighth Judicial District Court, 1943, 62     Nev. 78, 140 P.2d 953.

(c) At any rate either the fixed period or the reasonable     time for vacating judgments produces quite different results      from the erratic consequences of the 'term rule.'

(3) In some States, it appears, a court has no control over its judgments after they are signed and entered. See, e.g., Louisiana Bank v. Hampton, La.1816, 4 Mart., O.S., 94; Nelson & Co. v. Rocquet & Co., 1909, 123 La. 91, 48 So. 756. In Massachusetts a court has no jurisdiction to vacate a judgment 'on mere motion' except for clerical error. Shawmut Commercial Paper Co. v. Cram, 1912, 212 Mass. 108, 98 N.E. 696. But see Mass.Gen. Laws 1932, c. 250, §§ 14-20.

Mr. Justice REED, with whom Mr. Justice BURTON joins, dissenting.