Nofire v. United States

Citations

• 164 U.S. 657
• 17 S. Ct. 212
• 41 L. Ed. 588
• 1897 U.S. LEXIS 1698

Syllabus

<p>The fact that a marriage license has been issued carries with it a presumption that all statutory prerequisites thereto have been complied with, and one who claims to the contrary must affirmatively show the fact.</p> <p>Persons coming to a public office to transact business who find a person in charge of it and transacting its business in a regular way, are not bound to ascertain his authority to so act; but.to them he is an officer defacto, to whose acts the same validity and the same presumptions attach as to those of an officer de jure.</p> <p>The evidence shows that the deceased sought, in his lifetime, to become a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, took all the steps he supposed necessary therefor, considered himself a citizen, and that the Cherokee Nation in his lifetime recognized him as a .citizen and still asserts his citizenship. Held, that, under those circumstances, it must be adjudged that he was a citizen by adoption, and consequently that the jurisdiction over the offence charged is, by the laws of the United States and treaties with the Cherokee Nation, vested in the courts of that Nation.</p>