Mah Toi v. Herbert Brownell, Jr., as Attorney General

Appellant seeks to establish that he is a citizen of the United States, proceeding under 8 U.S.C. § 903 and basing his claim to such status on the allegation that he was born in the City of San Francisco, California on November 1, 1902 and by reason of native birth is a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. The only evidence offered at the trial in support of appellant's petition was the personal testimony of appellant and the admission in evidence of the judgment roll in Cause No. 14,143 of the California Superior Court for San Francisco County wherein an order of that court dated November 21, 1923, recites that one Mah Toi, the son of Mah Lin Ong and Wong Shee, was born on November 1,1902 in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California. A certified copy of the order was admitted in evidence on the testimony of appellant that he is the person named in the order and that the copy had been in his possession from November, 1923 until January, 1949 when it was given to the immigration authorities at San Francisco on appellant’s return to the United States from a visit in China of almost two years.

In appellant’s petition it is alleged, in…