In re Naturalization of Vura

5 Ohio App. 334, 28 Ohio C.C. Dec. 15, 26 Ohio C.A. 481, 1913 Ohio App. LEXIS 160
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 20, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 5 Ohio App. 334 (In re Naturalization of Vura) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Naturalization of Vura, 5 Ohio App. 334, 28 Ohio C.C. Dec. 15, 26 Ohio C.A. 481, 1913 Ohio App. LEXIS 160 (Ohio Ct. App. 1913).

Opinion

Grant, J.

This is a petition in error, the object and prayer of which is to reverse the judgment of the court of common pleas of this county refusing the application of Stephen Vura for admission to citizenship of the United States, under the laws permitting the naturalization of aliens.

The assignment of error is that the finding of the court below, that the applicant was not entitled to be admitted as a citizen, and the judgment of that court dismissing his application are contrary to the weight of the evidence.

[335]*335The government of the United States has intervened in this proceeding, and has been heard at the bar, objecting in limine to this court entertaining the petition in error, on the ground that it has no jurisdiction to hear the controversy and no power to determine the applicant’s contention.

We are first to dispose of this preliminary question. Our immediate jurisdiction, if 'there is any, is conferred by the laws of Ohio, under which this court is organized and proceeds.

By those laws, Section 12247, General Code, the right and duty of this court to review upon petition in error the action of inferior courts extends to all judgments and final orders of the courts of common pleas. This provision, it is believed, comprehends the case brought before us for- review by the present record, the court below being one that has common law jurisdiction, a clerk and a seal.

The right to naturalize foreigners in the first instance is reserved to the United States by its constitution, which is the source and foundation of authority in the whole matter. The language of that instrument in this respect, Section 8, Article I, is: “The Congress shall have power * * * to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, * * * to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers * * By adopting the constitution, including this provision, the states have made congress the exclusive depositary of the power to clothe aliens with the rights of citizenship. But it does not follow from this assent that congress must employ only federal courts or other agencies in its exercise of the power thus reserved. It is [336]*336a constitutional principle, too plain for dispute, that even without express authority from congress the states, through their courts or otherwise, may occupy a field of jurisdiction by the federal constitution reserved to the general government, when and so long as the latter does not occupy it. Says Cooley, Principles of the Constitution (3 ed.), page 35: “The mere grant of a power to Congress does not of itself necessarily imply a prohibition upon the States to exercise the like power. The full sphere of federal powers may, at the discretion of Congress, be occupied or not, as the wisdom of that body may determine.” And again, page 70, when dealing with the right of congress to regulate interstate commerce, the same learned author says: “But the mere existence of this power in Congress does not necessarily exclude the States from all authority whatever which might affect the commerce falling within the control of Congress, provided no actual legislation of Congress is interfered with.” And he mentions, as allowable action by the states, laws establishing quarantine against noxious diseases from foreign ports, and those requiring locomotive engineers to be examined for color-blindness, even while engaged in interstate commercial traffic. The federal constitution does not, by its own force, completely provide for the exercise of the powers created by it, except in the relatively few cases of which the. supreme court must take cognizance. “For other cases,” says Cooley, page 124, “it is necessary that courts shall be created by Congress, and their respective jurisdictions defined; and in creating-them Congress may confer upon each so much of the judicial power [337]*337of the United States as to its wisdom shall seem proper and suitable, and restrict that which is conferred at discretion. In doing so it may apportion among the several Federal .courts all the judicial power of the United States, or it may apportion a part only, and in that case what is not apportioned will be left to be exercised by the courts of the States. Thus the States may have a limited jurisdiction within the sphere of the judicial power of the United States, but subject to be further limited or wholly taken away by subsequent Federal legislation. Such is the state of the law at this time: many cases within the reach of the judicial power of the United States are left wholly to the state courts, while in many others the state courts are permitted to exercise a jurisdiction concurrent with that of the Federal courts, but with a final review of their, judgments on questions of Federal law in the United States Supreme Court.”

We do not, however, have to rely on this idea— negatively postulated — of the failure of the general government to occupy the entire field of jurisdiction. We may conceive that if by nonuser the United States may thereby impliedly allow state tribunals to act in exercising a power which the constitution has created, not vainly but to be exercised, with better reason it may reach the same end affirmatively by abdicating in favor of the state courts, by surrendering to them, in whole or partly, or by .parceling to them, together with its own judiciary, the exercise of the powers created by the constitution of the United States in respect of naturalizations. We submit that as matter of history congress has done both of these things. First, it [338]*338abdicated to the states. It surrendered to them the entire exercise of the right to admit aliens to citizenship. By the act of 1790, jurisdiction in matters of naturalization was conferred upon state courts exclusively. And second, it was not till 1802 that the power was extended to federal tribunals, to be shared by them with the state courts. This duality of jurisdiction has continued unimpaired and unquestioned up to this moment. Indeed it is not, per se, called in question now. The claim of the district attorney’s office, if we understand the argument made at the bar, is this: The right of the state courts to grant or deny naturalization in the first instance is conceded; but it is denied that the right of review at the instance of an aggrieved applicant exists. In other words, while congress has adopted the state courts as its judicial agents in the matter of admitting aliens to citizenship, it refuses to recognize the procedure of those courts, as prescribed in the statutes by which they are created, and which they are bound to follow and obey. The idea seems to be that up to the point of admitting or refusing to admit the foreigner as a citizen the state courts may act, but that when it comes to the question of a review of their action at the suit of an aggrieved applicant the forum must be changed and the matter disposed of according to the course and procedure of the federal tribunals,'which it is said do not allow a review of the case.

It is hardly conceivable, we think, that a state court clothed with jurisdiction, with the power to hear and determine, can be compelled by construction only to carve up this power and deny a remedy, to which he thinks he is entitled, to the man of whose [339]*339petition it has taken jurisdiction, and which the law to which that court owes not only its allegiance but its existence gives him.

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Bluebook (online)
5 Ohio App. 334, 28 Ohio C.C. Dec. 15, 26 Ohio C.A. 481, 1913 Ohio App. LEXIS 160, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-naturalization-of-vura-ohioctapp-1913.