U.S. Supreme Court MORRISON v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA, 291 U.S. 82 (1934)

[Page 291 U.S. 82, 88]

the burden of proving citizenship as a defense. [Footnote 3] We sustained that enactment when challenged as invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The state had given evidence with reference to the defendant, the occupant of the land, that by reason of his race he was ineligible to be made a citizen. With this evidence present, we held that the burden was his to show that by reason of his birth he was a citizen already, and thus to bring himself within a rule which has the effect of an exception. In the vast majority of cases, he could do this without trouble if his claim of citizenship was honest. The people, on the other hand, if forced to disprove his claim, would be relatively helpless. In all likelihood his life history would be known only to himself and at times to relatives or intimates unwilling to speak against him.

[Page 291 U.S. 82, 96]

or an Eurasian, his ancestors party Europeans and partly Asiatics. [Footnote 6]

[Page 291 U.S. 82, 97]

Other considerations may or may not apply where the controversy is civil. We leave that question open.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered. Footnotes

Footnote 1 The opinions in Jeffries v. Ankeny, 11 Ohio, 372 and Gray v. State, 4 Ohio 353, rest upon peculiar provisions of the Ohio Constitution.

Footnote 2 The appeal was dismissed for the want of a substantial federal question upon a statement as to jurisdiction, and without argument of counsel.

Footnote 3 'Sec. 9b. In any action or proceeding, civil or criminal, by the State of California, or the people thereof, under any of the provisions of this act, when the complaint, indictment or information, alleges the alienage and ineligibility to United States citizenship of any defendant, proof by the state, or the people thereof, of the acquisition, possession, enjoyment, use, cultivation, occupation or transferring of real property or any interest therein, or the having in whole or in part of the beneficial use thereof by such defendant, or of any such facts, and in addition proof that such defendant is a member of a race ineligible to citizenship under the naturalization laws of the United States, shall create a prima facie presumption of the ineligibility to citizenship of such defendant, and the burden of proving citizenship or eligibility to citizenship as a defense to any such action or proceeding shall thereupon devolve upon such defendant.' Cal. Stats. 1927, c. 528, p. 881, 2.

Footnote 4 Instances of the application of this principle can be cited in profusion. The cases that follow are typical examples: King v. Turner, 5 Maule & Sel. 206, where a defendant, having game in his possession in violation of a statute whereby possession was generally a crime, was held to have the burden of proving his special qualifications (cf. Yee Hem v. United States, supra; also Spieres v. Parker, 1 T.R. 144, per Lord Mansfield); Fleming v. People, 27 N.Y. 329, a prosecution for bigamy, where, on proof that the defendant had contracted a second marriage during the lifetime of his first wife, the burden was laid upon him to prove exceptional circumstances that would have made the marriage lawful; and finally such cases as Potter v. Deyo, 19 Wend.(N.Y.) 361, 363, and United States v. Turner (D.C.) 266 F. 248 (typical of a host of others) where a defendant has been subjected to the burden of producing a license or a permit for a business or profession that would otherwise be illegal. Cf. United States v. Hayward, 26 Fed.Cas. 240, No. 15,336; Board Com'rs Excise of Auburn v. Merchant, 103 N.Y. 143, 8 N.E. 484, 57 Am.Rep. 705.

Footnote 5 Indians not born in the United States and not entitled to the special privileges growing out of service in the war (8 U.S.C. 3, 8 USCA 3) are ineligible for citizenship.

There is a strain of Indian blood in many of the inhabitants of Mexico as well as in the peoples of Central and South America. Robert F. Foerster, The Racial Problems Involved in Immigration from Latin America and the West Indies to the United States, Report to Secretary of Labor, 1925, pp. 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, 41.

Whether persons of such descent may be naturalized in the United States is still an unsettled question.

The subject was considered in Matter of Rodriguez (D.C.) 81 F. 337, but not all that was there said is consistent with later decisions of this court. Ozawa v. United States, and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, supra. Cf. In re Camille, supra.

Mexicans have migrated into California in increasingly large numbers ( T. F. Woofter, Jr., Status of Racial and Ethnic Groups in 'Recent Social Trends,' vol. 1, pp. 553, 562, 572, 573); and there have developed racial problems which have been considered by official bodies. California Departments of Industrial Relations, Agriculture and Social Welfare, 'Mexicans in California,' Report by Governor C. C. Young's Mexican Fact Finding Committee, San Francisco, Cal., 1930, pp. 41, et seq.

The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation of 1831 between the United States and Mexico gives to the nationals of either country the privilege of owning personal estate in the other (article 13), but contains no provision in respect of the ownership of land. This treaty was revived after the Mexican War by article 17 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). It was terminated by Mexico in November, 1881. See Malloy, Treaties, vol. 1, p. 1085 (8 Stat. 414; 9 Stat. 935).

Footnote 6 As to the appearance of children of marriages between Japanese and the white races, see: S. C. Gulick, The American Japanese Problem, p. 153; Iyenaga v. Sato, Japan and the California Problem, p. 157.