1. Objections to Mexican grants ought not to be taken as if the
case was pending on a writ of error, with a bill of exceptions to
the admission of every item of testimony offered and received
below.
2. When there is any just suspicion of fraud or forgery, the
defense should be made below, and the evidence to support the
charge should appeal on the record.
3. The want of approval of a grant by the departmental assembly
does not affect its validity.
Johnson and others, the respondents, claimed title under the
Mexican government, through one Chaves, to a tract of land called
Pleyto, lying in the present County of Monterey, State of
California, and containing about three leagues, which land he had
petitioned for on the 2d of June, 1845. The deed to Chaves
purported to be made on the 18th July, 1845, by Pio Pico, one of
the Mexican governors of California, and it recited that "the
necessary steps and investigations were previously taken and made
in conformity with the requirements of laws and regulations." On
the 8th May, 1846, the "expediente"
*
was laid before the departmental
Page 68 U. S. 327
assembly, and was ordered to be referred to the Committee on
Vacant Lands. The land asked for by Chaves having been once
occupied by a community of priests of the mission of St. Antonio,
and being said to have a house upon it which they had built, the
committee recommended that
"the expediente be remitted to the authorities of that
jurisdiction to be reported on, and to the person in charge of San
Antonio, in order that he may say in what condition that house was
at the time the grant was made, so that it might be valued, and
that community be indemnified, to avoid questions relative to the
expediente, to the end that, after these proceedings are concluded,
the respective approval may be given."
The departmental assembly, thus referring it, was soon
afterwards dissolved, and nothing further done. The original grant
made it a condition that Chaves should occupy the land, which there
was evidence, though not wholly uncontradicted, that he did.
In some of the deeds through which the respondents claimed, the
parties signing the deeds did not, apparently, sign them by the
exact names with which, in the instruments, they were described.
One deed, for example, purported to be made by Tomas Soberannes,
and was signed Thomas G. Soberannes. Another purported, in the body
of it, to be made by Tomas Guadaloup Soberannes, but said that the
land was devised to the said Tomas Guadaloup Sanchez, under the
name of Guadaloup Soberannes. It was signed T. Guadaloup Sanchez,
and acknowledged T. Guadalupe Sobrannes, and so in other instances.
Some of the witnesses to papers making part of the title were
persons whose names had been before this Court in former cases, and
had
Page 68 U. S. 328
been spoken of in judicial opinions reported as not worthy of
confidence.
With these documents and this evidence, Johnson and the other
claimants having presented their petition to the board of
commissioners established by the act of March 3, 1851, "to
ascertain and settle private land claims in the State of
California," and that board having confirmed it, the United States
took the case by appeal into the district court, which court having
also confirmed it, the case came here, as already mentioned, the
question being whether the petition for confirmation of the claim
was rightly granted and affirmed.
The title of Chaves was found among the archives. The deed of
Governor Pico was authenticated below by proof of his handwriting
and that of his secretary, who witnessed it.
MR. JUSTICE GRIER delivered the opinion of the Court:
The title of Chaves is found among the archives. Its
authenticity was not disputed before the commissioners or the
district court, but in this Court the objection is first made that
the handwriting of the public officers was proved, whereas the
governor and secretary should have been called as the proper
witnesses to authenticate their own acts.
In taking objections to these Mexican grants, it ought to
Page 68 U. S. 329
be remembered that the case is not brought here on a writ of
error with a bill of exceptions to the admission of every item of
testimony offered and received below. Nor is it a part of the duty
of counsel representing the government to urge microscopic
objections against an honest claimant and urge the forfeiture of
his property for some oversight of the commissioners in not
requiring proof according to the strict rules of common law. When
there is any just suspicion of fraud or forgery, the defense should
be made below, and the evidence to support the charge should appear
on the record. If testimony of witnesses is alleged to be unworthy
of belief, the record should show some reason to justify the court
in rejecting it. The former opinions of this Court may be referred
to in questions of law, but cannot be quoted as evidence of the
character of living witnesses.
On the 2d of June, 1845, Antonio Chaves petitioned the governor
for the grant of a place called Pleyto, containing three leagues, a
little more or a little less. The record does not show the usual
reference for information. But the grant by Pio Pico, dated 18th
July, 1845, recites that "the necessary steps and investigations
were previously taken and made in conformity with the requirements
of laws and regulations." On the 8th of May, 1846, "this espediente
was laid before the departmental assembly, and was ordered to be
referred to the Committee on Vacant Lands." The committee
recommended
"that the present espediente be remitted to the authorities of
that jurisdiction to be reported on, and to the person in charge of
San Antonio in order that he may say in what condition the town was
at the time the grant was made, so that it may be valued, and that
community be indemnified to avoid questions relative to the
espediente, to the end that after these proceedings are concluded
the respective approval may be given."
As this assembly was soon after finally dissolved, nothing
further appears to have been done. There is evidence that Chaves
was in the occupancy of the land granted.
We have frequently decided that the want of approval by the
departmental assembly will not affect the validity of the
Page 68 U. S. 330
grant. In this case, the approval is not denied, but the
question suspended.
Although some of the grants purporting to be made by Pio Pico in
the spring of 1846, shortly before his expulsion, have been shown
to have been executed after that time, there is no evidence in this
case to justify the court in deciding that this grant is not
authentic.
Decree affirmed.
* This term "expediente" is a term of the Mexican land law, and
of course not familiar to the reader of law reports in general,
though it has now become so to those of the reports of this
Court.
"When complete, an expediente usually consists of the petition,
with the diseno annexed; a marginal decree approving the petition,
the order of reference to the proper officer for information; the
report of that officer in conformity to the order; the decree of
concession, and the copy, or a duplicate of the grant. These
several papers -- that is, the petition with the diseno annexed,
the order of reference, the informe, the decree of concession, and
the copy of the grant, appended together, in the order mentioned --
constitute a complete expediente within the meaning of the Mexican
law."
United States v. Knight's
Admr., 1 Black 245.
