Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez

Supreme Court of United States
372 U.S. 144 (1963)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A federal statute that automatically revokes a person's citizenship for the purpose of punishment, without affording the procedural safeguards of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, is unconstitutional.

Facts:

Francisco Mendoza-Martinez, a native-born U.S. citizen with dual Mexican nationality, went to Mexico in 1942 for the sole purpose of evading military service in the U.S. armed forces.
Mendoza-Martinez remained in Mexico for that purpose until November 1946, when he voluntarily returned to the United States.
Joseph Henry Cort, a native-born U.S. citizen, went to England in 1951 for a medical research fellowship after registering for the draft.
In 1953, Cort's local draft board ordered him to report for a physical examination and, subsequently, for induction.
Cort did not report for induction and in 1954 moved to Czechoslovakia, where he remained.
In 1959, Cort applied for a U.S. passport in Prague, stating he wished to return to the United States to fulfill his Selective Service obligations.

Procedural Posture:

For Mendoza-Martinez, an immigration special inquiry officer ordered his deportation, which was affirmed by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Mendoza-Martinez sued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California for a declaratory judgment of his citizenship.
The District Court ruled against him, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated and remanded for reconsideration in light of Trop v. Dulles.
On remand, the District Court found the statute unconstitutional. The Supreme Court remanded a second time on a collateral estoppel issue.
The District Court again found the statute unconstitutional, leading the Attorney General to appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
For Cort, the State Department denied his passport application and issued a certificate of loss of nationality.
Cort sued the Secretary of State in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
A three-judge District Court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and the Secretary of State appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Issue:

Do federal statutes that automatically strip a person of their U.S. citizenship for leaving or remaining outside the country to evade military service violate the procedural due process protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments?

Opinions:

Majority - Mr. Justice Goldberg

Yes, the statutes violate the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Congress has employed the sanction of deprivation of nationality as a punishment for the offense of leaving or remaining outside the country to evade military service without affording the procedural safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution. The core issue is whether these statutes are penal in character. To determine this, the Court considers several factors, including whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability, its historical perception as punishment, whether it requires scienter, and if it serves traditional aims of punishment like retribution and deterrence. The Court finds conclusive evidence of punitive intent by tracing the statutes' history to the explicitly punitive Act of March 3, 1865, which imposed forfeiture of citizenship as an additional penalty for desertion and draft evasion. The legislative history of the 1944 act (§ 401(j)) confirms it was intended as a retributive measure against 'draft dodgers.' Because expatriation in this context is a penalty, it cannot be constitutionally imposed without a prior criminal trial and all its procedural incidents, including indictment by a grand jury, notice, confrontation, trial by jury, and assistance of counsel.

Concurring - Mr. Justice Brennan

Yes, the statutes are punitive and therefore unconstitutional. Expatriation is a 'drastic, the truly terrifying remedy' that cannot be used as a common sanction to curb undesirable conduct or exact retribution. The dissent's argument that the law serves to boost morale is, in effect, an admission of its punitive nature, as it is only the retributive quality of the sanction that could achieve such an effect, making it 'naked vengeance.' The statutes are functionally identical to the one struck down in Trop v. Dulles, as they employ expatriation as a punishment without a uniquely necessary connection to any of Congress's regulatory powers, such as the war power or the foreign affairs power. The special harshness of the penalty for this specific conduct, draft evasion, confirms that it is punishment being administered.

Dissenting - Mr. Justice Stewart

No, the statutes are a constitutional exercise of Congress's regulatory power. The majority's central premise that these statutes are 'punishment' is incorrect. Citing Perez v. Brownell, the dissent argues that Congress has the power to involuntarily denationalize citizens without a criminal trial. The majority's reliance on the punitive 1865 Civil War statute is misplaced, as the modern statutes were enacted for a different, regulatory purpose: to address the corrosive effect on wartime morale caused by fugitive draft evaders. This exercise of the war power is rational, as it removes a visible group of individuals who have disassociated themselves from the nation in its time of need. The act of fleeing the country to evade the draft is an unequivocal manifestation of non-allegiance, justifying this congressional response. However, the dissent finds the evidentiary presumption in Cort's statute (§ 349(a)(10)) to be unconstitutional, as it creates an irrational connection between the fact proved and the fact presumed, violating due process.

Dissenting - Mr. Justice Harlan

No, the statutes are constitutional. Joining Justice Stewart's dissent on the substantive constitutionality of the laws, this opinion disagrees that the evidentiary presumption in § 349(a)(10) is unconstitutional. Similar presumptions have been consistently upheld in criminal statutes where a rational connection exists between the fact proved (failing to comply with draft laws while abroad) and the ultimate fact presumed (the purpose of evading service). Furthermore, the district court in Cort's case likely did not rely on the presumption, as the evidence was sufficient on its own to support the finding that Cort remained abroad to evade service.

Analysis:

This landmark decision establishes that denationalization, when used as a penalty for criminal conduct, constitutes punishment in the constitutional sense, thereby triggering the full procedural protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The ruling curtails Congress's power to use expatriation as a sanction, distinguishing between punitive denationalization and regulatory denationalization (as upheld in cases like Perez v. Brownell). The case is also significant for establishing the 'Mendoza-Martinez factors,' a seven-part test used in subsequent jurisprudence to determine whether a legislative act is penal or civil/regulatory in nature. This framework has proven influential in analyzing various government sanctions that fall outside traditional criminal proceedings.

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