Acheson, Secretary of State v. Mariko Kuniyuki

Counsel fail to appreciate that Savorgnan v. United States, 338 U.S. 491 , 70 S.Ct. 292 , 94 L.Ed. 287 , compels the statement in this court’s opinion to which appellee particularly objects. That statement was: “The fact, if it be a fact, that she did not intend to lose her nationality and did not know that she would lose • it if she voted in these elections is immaterial.”

In the Savorgnan case, the court said, 338 U.S. at page 499 , 70 S.Ct. at page 296 : “The petitioner’s principal contention is that she did not intend to give up her American citizenship, although she applied for and accepted Italian citizenship, and that her intent should prevail. However, the acts upon which the statutes expressly condition the consent of our Government to the expatriation of its citizens are stated objectively. There is no suggestion in the statutory language that the effect of. the specified overt acts, when voluntarily done, is conditioned upon the undisclosed intent of the person doing them.”

The statement that the rules there applied with respect to expatriation “are stated objectively”, was, in our view, but a brief way of stating what was said in the decision of the Court of Appeals…