Concurrence Brennan | End date 1958 | |
Full case name Albert L. Trop v. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, et al. Citations 356 U.S. 86 (more)
78 S. Ct. 590; 2 L. Ed. 2d 630; 1958 U.S. LEXIS 1284 Prior history Both District and Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trop's claim Plurality Warren, joined by Black, Douglas, Whittaker Concurrence Black, joined by Douglas Ruling court Supreme Court of the United States Similar Weems v United States, Coker v Georgia, Gregg v Georgia, Atkins v Virginia, Furman v Georgia | ||
Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), was a federal case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, that it was unconstitutional for the government to revoke the citizenship of a U.S. citizen as a punishment.
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The ruling's reference to "evolving standards of decency" is frequently cited precedent in the court's interpretation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment."
Background
Albert Trop was a natural born citizen of the United States who, while serving as a private in the United States Army in 1944, deserted from an Army stockade in Casablanca, Morocco. The next day, he willingly surrendered to an army officer and was taken back to the base, where he was subsequently court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to three years at hard labor, forfeiture of pay, and a dishonorable discharge.
In 1952, Trop applied for a passport, which was denied because the Nationality Act of 1940 provided that members of the armed forces of the United States who deserted would lose their citizenship. (A 1944 amendment modified the Act such that a deserter would lose his citizenship only if on these grounds, he had been dishonorably discharged or dismissed from the military).
Trop filed suit in US federal courts seeking declaratory judgment that he was a US citizen.
The US district court ruled in favor of the government, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the decision of the district court.
Decision
The Supreme Court reversed. In the decision, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court cited Perez v. Brownell, the Court had held that citizenship could be divested in the exercise of the foreign affairs power. However, "denationalization as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment," describing it as "a form of punishment more primitive than torture" as it inflicts the "total destruction of the individual's status in organized society."
Dissenting, Justice Felix Frankfurter noted that desertion from the military can be punished by the death penalty, leading him to ask, "Is constitutional dialectic so empty of reason that it can be seriously urged that loss of citizenship is a fate worse than death?"