![handle is hein.journals/prvw7 and id is 1 raw text is: Oct. 1979 Term-No. 1
OF UNITED STATES SUPREME OQURT CASESI
September 5, 1979
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CYRUS VANCE, SECRETARY OF STATE
v. LAURENCE J. TERRAZAS
(Docket No. 78-1143)
Constitutional law - Fourteenth amendment - Loss of United
States nationality - Power of Congress to define standard of
proof for establishing acts of voluntary expatriation
On Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit. Decision below: 577 F.2d 7 (1978)
Analysis prepared May 27, 1979, by Professor Gordon B. Bald-
win, University of Wisconsin Law School, Madison, WI 53706;
telephone (608) 263-2077
Counselfor Appellant: Wade H. McCree, Jr., Solicitor General,
Philip B. Hemann, AIlan A. Ryan, Jr., William G. Otis, and Paul
R. Brysch, Washington, DC; for Appellee: Kenneth K. Ditkowsky,
Chicago, IL
Issue
Did the trial court, in applying the statutory preponderance of
the evidence test and in finding that the appellee voluntarily re-
nounced his United States nationality, apply the evidentiary stan-
dard required by the citizenship clause of the fourteenth amend-
ment, or should the court have required the Government to prove
expatriation by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence?
Facts
Laurence Terrazas, born in Maryland of a Mexican father and
an American mother, was a dual national of Mexico and the
United States. In 1970, when Terrazas was 22 years old and study-
ing in Mexico, he signed an application in Spanish for a certificate
of Mexican nationality. The application contained language ex-
pressly renouncing United States nationality. Based on this ap-
plication and on material submitted by the United States vice con-
sul, the Department of State issued a certificate of loss of United
States nationality. Terrazas claims that he did not intend to re-
nounce his United States nationality, a claim that the United
States Government sharply contests. Terrazas' administrative ap-
peal with the Board of Appellate Review of the Department of
State was rejected, and he brought this case in the federal courts
pursuant to statutory procedures authorizing the courts to issue
declarations of United States citizenship.
A federal district court, after a nonjury trial, found that the
Government had fulfilled its statutory burden of proving by a
preponderance of the evidence that Terrazas had voluntarily
expatriated himself. The court of appeals reversed, stating that
the Government must prove an act of voluntary expatriation by
clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence, and holding that
the statutory preponderance of the evidence test was un-
constitutional under the fourteenth amendment's citizenship
clause. The United States appealed, and on March 26, 1979, the
Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and granted
appellee's motion to proceed in forma pauperis.
Background and Significance
An unknown number, but probably many thousands, of per-
sons have lost United States citizenship on the ground that under
the statutory preponderance of the evidence test, they com-
mitted voluntary acts of expatriation. If the Supreme Court af-
firms the decision below, many, if not most, of these cases will be
reopened because an unconstitutional test was applied. Affirming
the court of appeals would establish the standard of proof as re-
quiring clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence of the ex-
patriating act. If, however, the Court reverses the decision below
and holds that Congress may constitutionally establish a pre-
ponderance of the evidence test, these cases will stand. A rever-
sal, therefore, will legitimize the results of many administrative
determinations by the Department of State that persons have lost
their citizenship.
If the Supreme Court distinguishes between natural born and
naturalized citizens and holds that the clear, convincing and
unequivocal evidence test applies to the former and the pre-
ponderance of the evidence test to the latter, the Court will
perpetuate a distinction advanced in Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S.
815 (1971).
The clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence test was ap-
plied by the Supreme Court in Nishikawa v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 129
(1958), because the consequences of denaturalization are so
drastic. In Nishikawa, the Court construed a statute requiring
denaturalization for voluntarily serving in a foreign army, but the
Continued on page 2
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