Juan Jose Medrano v. United States

This is an appeal from a refusal of the district court to set aside judgments and sentences in the case of Medrano v. United States, 9 Cir., 1960, 285 F.2d 23 , in a proceeding brought below under Section 2255, Title 28, United States Code.

Appellant, charged with five violations of Section 174 of Title 21, United States Code, involving narcotics, and found guilty, urges that there was no proof of “illegal importation,” and thus that a jurisdictional fact was lacking that can be raised at any time, even after the finality of the original judgment of conviction. There was no proof there was or had been physical possession of the narcotic in appellant, urges his counsel, and therefore, to infer he had a constructive possession, and based on that inference, to presume an illegal importation, is a presumption resting on an inference, and violative of the rule enunciated in the one case cited by appellant, United States v. Ross, 1875, 92 U.S. 281 , 23 L.Ed. 707 , to the effect that “a presumption [can not] be a substitute for proof of an independent and material fact.”

We do not doubt the validity of that rule, nor dispute it. But an independent and material fact may be proved by…