Burden of proof is a legal duty that encompasses two connected but separate ideas that apply for establishing the truth of facts in a trial before tribunals in the United States: the "burden of production" and the "burden of persuasion." In a legal dispute, one party is initially presumed to be correct, while the other side bears the burden of producing evidence persuasive enough to establish the truth of facts needed to satisfy all the required legal elements of legal dispute. There are varying types of burden of persuasion commonly referred to as standards of proof, and depending on the type of case, the standard of proof will be higher or lower. Burdens of persuasion and production may be of different standards for each party, in different phases of litigation. The burden of production is a minimal burden to produce at least enough evidence for the trier of fact to consider a disputed claim. After litigants have met the burden of production, they have the burden of persuasion: that enough evidence has been presented to persuade the trier of fact that their side is correct. There are different standards of persuasiveness ranging from a preponderance of the evidence, where there is just enough evidence to tip the balance, to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as in United States criminal courts.
Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to revoke citizenship as a punishment for a crime. The ruling's reference to "evolving standards of decency" is frequently cited in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is a legal standard of proof required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems. It is a higher standard of proof than the balance of probabilities and is usually therefore reserved for criminal matters where what is at stake is considered more serious and therefore deserving of a higher threshold.
Oyama v. State of California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that specific provisions of the 1913 and 1920 California Alien Land Laws abridged the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to Fred Oyama, a US citizen in whose name his father, a Japanese citizen, had purchased land. In doing so, however, the court did not overturn the California Alien Land Laws as unconstitutional.
In jurisprudence, undue influence is an equitable doctrine that involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person. This inequity in power between the parties can vitiate one party's consent as they are unable to freely exercise their independent will.
Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that citizens of the United States may not be deprived of their citizenship involuntarily. The U.S. government had attempted to revoke the citizenship of Beys Afroyim, a man born in Poland, because he had cast a vote in an Israeli election after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. The Supreme Court decided that Afroyim's right to retain his citizenship was guaranteed by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In so doing, the Court struck down a federal law mandating loss of U.S. citizenship for voting in a foreign election—thereby overruling one of its own precedents, Perez v. Brownell (1958), in which it had upheld loss of citizenship under similar circumstances less than a decade earlier.
Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court affirmed Congress's right to revoke United States citizenship as a result of a citizen's voluntary performance of specified actions, even in the absence of any intent or desire on the person's part to lose citizenship. Specifically, the Supreme Court upheld an act of Congress which provided for revocation of citizenship as a consequence of voting in a foreign election.
Dixon v. United States, 548 U.S. 1 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the level of proof required to establish the affirmative defense of duress in a federal criminal case.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), is a US employment law case by the United States Supreme Court regarding the burdens and nature of proof in proving a Title VII case and the order in which plaintiffs and defendants present proof. It was the seminal case in the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.
Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252 (1980), was a United States Supreme Court decision that established that a United States citizen cannot have his or her citizenship taken away unless he or she has acted with an intent to give up that citizenship. The Supreme Court overturned portions of an act of Congress which had listed various actions and had said that the performance of any of these actions could be taken as conclusive, irrebuttable proof of intent to give up U.S. citizenship. However, the Court ruled that a person's intent to give up citizenship could be established through a standard of preponderance of evidence — rejecting an argument that intent to relinquish citizenship could only be found on the basis of clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence.
Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a child born in the United States to naturalized parents on U.S. soil is a natural born citizen and that the child's natural born citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin, provided that upon attaining the age of majority, the child elects to retain U.S. citizenship "and to return to the United States to assume its duties."
Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that an individual who received an automatic congressional grant of citizenship at birth, but who was born outside the United States, may lose his citizenship for failure to fulfill any reasonable residence requirements which the United States Congress may impose as a condition subsequent to that citizenship.
Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 (1952), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a person born in the United States, with both U.S. citizenship and a foreign citizenship obtained via an alien parent or parents, does not need to live in or return to the United States as an adult in order to retain U.S. citizenship.
The Expatriation Act of 1868 was an act of the 40th United States Congress that declared, as part of the United States nationality law, that the right of expatriation is "a natural and inherent right of all people" and "that any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government".
The Expatriation Act of 1907 was an act of the 59th United States Congress concerning retention and relinquishment of United States nationality by married women and Americans residing abroad. It effectively functioned as Congressional endorsement of the various ad hoc rulings on loss of United States nationality that had been made by the State Department since the passage of the Expatriation Act of 1868. Some sections of it were repealed by other acts in the early 1920s; those sections which remained were codified at 8 U.S.C. §§ 6–17, but those too were repealed by the Nationality Act of 1940.when the question of dual citizenship arose.
The Renunciation Act of 1944 was an act of the 78th Congress regarding the renunciation of United States citizenship. Prior to the law's passage, it was not possible to lose U.S. citizenship while in U.S. territory except by conviction for treason; the Renunciation Act allowed people physically present in the U.S. to renounce citizenship when the country was in a state of war by making an application to the Attorney General. The intention of the 1944 Act was to encourage Japanese American internees to renounce citizenship so that they could be deported to Japan.
An Accidental American is someone whom US law deems to be an American citizen, but who has only a tenuous connection with that country. For example, American nationality law provides that anyone born on US territory is a US citizen, including those who leave as infants or young children, even if neither parent is a US citizen. US law also ascribes American citizenship to some children born abroad to a US citizen parent, even if those children never enter the United States. Since the early 2000s, the term "Accidental American" has been adopted by several activist groups to protest tax treaties and Inter-Governmental Agreements which treat such people as American citizens who are therefore potentially subject to tax and financial reporting requirements--requirements which few other countries impose on their nonresident citizens. Accidental Americans may be unaware of these requirements, or their US citizen status, until they encounter problems accessing bank services in their home countries, for example, or are barred from entering the USA on a non-US passport. Furthermore, the US State Department now charges USD 2350 to renounce citizenship, while tax reporting requirements associated with legal expatriation may pose additional financial burdens.
Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982), is a Supreme Court case involving the burden of proof for the revocation of parental rights. The case arose when the Ulster County, New York Department of Social Services sought to revoke John Santosky II and Annie Santosky's parental rights to their three children. Under Section 622 of the New York State Family Court Act, the state was permitted to revoke parental rights to a natural child if, after a fair preponderance of the evidence, a court found "permanent neglect." The New York State Family Court found such neglect by using the "fair preponderance" standard. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the burden of proof used.
Relinquishment of United States nationality is the process under federal law by which a U.S. citizen or national voluntarily and intentionally gives up that status and becomes an alien with respect to the United States. Relinquishment is distinct from denaturalization, which in U.S. law refers solely to cancellation of illegally procured naturalization.
