United States v. United States District Court for the Central District of California

The United States petitions for a writ of mandamus reversing the United States District Court’s orders (1) allowing the real party in interest, Luis Chavez-Orozco (“Chavez”) to advance as a defense to a violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 , illegal reentry after deportation, that he is a United States national, and adopting Chavez’s proposed jury instructions giving a definition of national, and (2) bifurcating the trial so that the Government may not prove Chavez’s earlier deportations in a first proceeding where the jury is to determine only whether Chavez qualifies as an alien illegally in the United States. As objective proof that he is a national, Chavez offers a withdrawn citizenship application from 1994 together with an Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) processing sheet, part of that application, signed by Chavez and bearing in part an oath of allegiance required for citizenship. Chavez’s jury instructions contain the statutory definition of “national” as a person who owes “permanent allegiance” to the United States, but provide no guidance to the jury on how to determine whether or not a person owes “permanent allegiance” as a matter of law.

We hold that…