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3 F.2d 79

Docket No. 2854.

In re Phillips

Texas Southern District Court

Decided December 11, 1924.)

Texas Southern District Court · decided 1924-12-11

1 counsel of record

Relies on In re Nagy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1924-12-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 1992

1 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions

2019241930194019501960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Aliens <@=»62 — Conviction of illegal possession of a still held to bar admission to citizenship.-

¶2Conviction of an alien of illegal possession of a still, wbich is made a specific offense by the Prohibition Act, during the five years before bis application for naturalization, held to bar Ms admission to citizenship, though be manufactured no liquor.

¶3Petition by George Phillips for naturalization.

¶4Denied.

¶5Walter Wheatley, Naturalization Examiner, of Houston, Tex., for the United States.

¶6HUTCHESON, District Judge.

¶7TMs case is the same as In re Nagy, just decided, 3 F.(2d) 77, except that in the Nagy Case petitioner had been convicted of the manufacture of liquor. In this case the offense was the unlawful possession of a still. TMs offense the Volstead Act (Comp. St. Ann. Snpp. 1923, § 10138(4 et seq.) denounces as a misdemeanor, and for its violation a flue may be imposed of from $100 to $500.

¶8The petitioner naively declared that he had not .made any wiiisky; that he had tried to, but all he got out of Ms experiment was a little “wormy water”; and be therefore asserted with much vehemence that he ought not to be denied Ms citizenship, since his efforts at law violation had proved abortive. I am not prepared to concede that the failure to commit an offense because of insufficient ability or preparation would advantage an applicant for his “accolade,” since it is the man’s heart and intent which is here searched, rather than Ms achievements. But it is not necessary for me to so decide, since the law makes the possession of a still, without manufacture, a specific offense.

¶9This being so, the case falls in principle directly within that of Nagy, and the same order will be entered.

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