purpura-moran reply letter brief to nj supreme ct filed 8-8-12

7/31/2019 Purpura-Moran Reply Letter Brief to NJ Supreme Ct FILED 8-8-12

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LAW OFFICES OF

MARIO APUZZO

Attorney at Law

185 Gatzmer Avenue

Jamesburg, New Jersey 08831(732) 521-1900

FAX (732) 521-3906Email [email protected]

August 8, 2012

Mark Neary, Clerk

Supreme Court of New Jersey

Hughes Justice Complex

25 W. Market Street

P.O. Box 970

Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0970

Re: Nicholas E. Purpura et al. v. Barack Obama

Docket No.: 070152

Dear Honorable Justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court:

Respondents do not offer any substantive argument

contradicting petitioners petition. We have shown that our petition

presents questions of general importance which have not been but

which should be settled by the Supreme Court and that the interest

of justice requires that the Supreme Court grant certification. A

democratic majority does not have the constitutional right to elect a

President who is not constitutionally eligible. Hence, whether a

person running for President is an Article II natural born Citizen

and constitutionally eligible for that office is a question of great
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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public importance. What role the State of New Jersey through the

Secretary of State (SOS) has in vetting candidates who are

running for the Office of President is also a question of great public

importance. Whether New Jersey is responsible for determining

the eligibility of its presidential candidates is a significant question

for the state to answer. For sure, how best to protect the integrity of

New Jersey elections for the Office of President is a question of

great public importance to the State of New Jersey, which is

guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4 of our Constitution a republican

form of government. Barack Obama (Obama) and the SOS have

not shown why such questions are not of public importance or why

the Supreme Court should not settle them. These questions and

their answers are special reasons enough for this Court to grant

certification.

Obama calls petitioners arguments recycled arguments

and failed theories without showing how their arguments are

wrong. BORb3.1

Obama fails to show how petitioners arguments

are simply application of established principles to the facts of a

certain case. Id. The SOS does not show how the election law

1BORb3 means Barack Obama respondents brief at page 3.


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issues raised by the petition are well-settled. SOSR2.2

Neither

Obama nor the SOS has shown why the State of New Jersey should

allow a person to be placed on the New Jersey election ballot for

the election to the Office of President who has presented absolutely

no evidence as to who he is, where he was born, and that he is

constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks. Neither Obama nor

the SOS point to any evidence in the record which supports the

ALJs finding that Obama was born in Hawaii or address the fact

that Obama was not born to a U.S. citizen father and mother.

The SOS argues that given, N.J.S.A. 19:13-18 and N.J.S.A.

19:13-20, she has no authority to remove Obamas name from the

ballot for the general election. SOSRb7. But clearly from the plain

language of N.J.S.A. 19:13-18, a vacancy is created if the petition

or nomination is insufficient or inoperative. N.J.S.A. 19:13-20

also provides that a vacancy, howsoever caused, may be filled

according to the procedure provided. A presidential candidate, not

demonstrating who he is, what his identity is, where he was born,

and that he is constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks and, in

any event, not being constitutionally eligible for that office because

2SOSRb2 means Secretary of State respondents brief at page 2.


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he is not an Article II natural born Citizen, renders the petition

and nomination insufficient and inoperative. That candidate

Obama is currently the putative sitting president and that

Obamas party has again nominated him for the same office do not

change or lessen his constitutional duty to demonstrate his

eligibility for that office. After all, to repeat a wrong twice does not

convert the wrong into a right. We have also shown in our petition

why it is unduly prejudicial to the integrity of our election for the

Office of President to wait for the Electoral College or even

Congress to address the issue of Obamas eligibility. Hence, the

SOS can declare a vacancy and ask that the procedure for filling

vacancies be followed by those interested in filling the vacancy.

Obama does not show whether countless other courts across

the country (BORb3) have actually addressed petitioners

arguments made here. Additionally, the New Jersey Supreme

Court is not bound by these other decisions. The clear distinction

between a citizen and a natural born Citizen is natural and

therefore universal, for a civil society must start with original

members (called citizens in a republic) who are the creators of

that society. Their children, grandchildren, etc. (Posterity)


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(Preamble to the Constitution) then are the natural-born citizens.

This is what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 in effect says. The

creators of the new republic were Citizens of the United States

and their Posterity were natural born Citizens. The Founders

and Framers also allowed for new citizens through naturalization.

Hence, any naturalized citizen under any Act of Congress becomes

a citizen of the United States, just like the original Citizens of

the United States. A reading of the plain text of the Fourteenth

Amendment shows that it also only adds to the citizens of the

United States, simply by persons being born (without requiring

citizen parents) or naturalized in its jurisdiction. And the

children (Posterity) born in the United States to those new first

generation citizens of the United States then become natural

born Citizens, just like the children of the descendents of the

original Citizens of the United States.

Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875), confirmed

the dichotomy of citizens and natural-born citizens. In the

doubt-free American common-law definition of a natural-born

citizen presented by Minor, the parents are citizens and the

children are natural born citizens. So, there was no question for


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the Minor Court whether children born in the United States to alien

parents were or were not natural-born citizens. Those children

simply did not meet the Founders and Framers definition of a

natural-born citizen. Minor explained that under that common-

law, they were aliens or foreigners. Hence, these children could

surely not be natural-born citizens. The only question was

whether those children now fell under the new Fourteenth

Amendment which included as citizens of the United States

children born within the jurisdiction of the United States. Minor

did not need to answer that question, for Virginia Minor was a

"natural-born citizen."

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), did

answer the question left open by Minor and said that those children,

born in the United States to domiciled and resident alien parents,

are citizens of the United States under the Fourteenth

Amendment. Wong Kim Ark recognized that Wong was a

Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States, but not an

Article II natural born Citizen. Justice Gray told us twice of this

distinction when he said: The child of an alien, if born in the

country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen,


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and by operation of the same principle. Wong Kim Ark, at 665-

66, 694 (citing and quoting Horace Binney). It is critical that when

he mentioned it for the second time, his sentence followed the

Courts conclusion which he based on how the colonial English

common law held aliens in amity to have sufficient allegiance to

the King to make his children born in the Kings dominion natural

born subjects, that Wong was born subject to the jurisdiction of

the United States. So twice, Justice Gray told us of the distinction

between a child born in the country to aliens and a child born in the

country to citizen parents and explained that both are citizens,

but only the latter is a natural-born citizen. So, today, a natural

born Citizen is still under the supreme law of the land a child born

in the United States to parents who were citizens at the time of

the childs birth. Any other U.S. citizen is a citizen of the

United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, Act of Congress,

or treaty.

Barack Obama was presumably born to a U.S. citizen

mother and a non-U.S. citizen father (his father was a British

subject/citizen). Obama maintains that it is sufficient for him to be

born to just one U.S. citizen parent in order to be a natural born


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Citizen. Having just one U.S. citizen parent is not enough to

make one a natural born Citizen.

There is no question that historically, a husbands and wifes

allegiance and citizenship followed that of the husband and united

into that of the husband. There was no such thing as a husband

having an allegiance or citizenship that was different from his

wifes. The Founders and Framers believed that a husband and

wife should be united as one when it came to allegiance and

citizenship. Speaking about a fathers citizenship meant that both

the father and mother had the same citizenship and that they would

both pass that citizenship on to their children. With citizenship

being united into one, there could not be any child born with

conflicting or split allegiances and loyalties inherited from one or

both alien parents under the rules of jus sanguinis (allegiance and

citizenship inherited from parents). See Mackenzie v. Hare, 239

U.S. 299, 311 (1915) ([t]he identity of husband and wife is an

ancient principle of our jurisprudence). Mackenzie explained that

the rule of unity of husband and wife addresses conditions of

national moment and international aspects. Id. at 312.


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On September 22, 1922, Congress enacted the Cable Act (42

Stat. 1021) which meant that a woman was no longer was tied to

her husbands citizenship. So, it was not until 1922 with the Cable

Act that wives could have a citizenship that was different from that

of her husband. But the acts framers also warned that it could

create dual national children. More importantly, the Cable Act did

not amend the definition of a natural born Citizen. The fact still

remained that the Founders and Framers originally constitutionally

required that both the father and mother of the child be citizens at

the time of the childs birth in the United States in order for that

child to be a natural born Citizen. So, the Constitution, never

being amended, still required two citizen parents. Hence, that an

alien wife has to go through a more rigorous exercise to become a

citizen of the United States did not amend the Constitutions

natural born Citizen clause by supposedly now only requiring one

citizen parent. Today, both father and mother must still be

citizens at the time of the childs birth. What changed is that the

wife does not simply follow the citizenship of her husband or vice

versa. Each spouse must acquire their own independent U.S.

citizenships and transmit their respective U.S. citizenship to their


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child by inheritance. See Ankeny v. Governor of the State of

Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), transfer denied 929

N.E.2d 789 (Ind. 2010) (in footnote 12 also said that Minor

followed the rule of unity of husband and wife when it said: Note

that the Court in Minor contemplates only scenarios where both

parents are either citizens or aliens, rather in the case of President

Obama, whose mother was a U.S. citizen and father was a citizen of

the United Kingdom).

Finally, the purpose of the natural born Citizen clause was

to have a child who would some day be President and Military

Commander born in allegiance and jurisdiction only to the United

States. Being born even to just one alien parent, causing the child

to inherit that foreign parents allegiance and citizenship through

jus sanguinis, would defeat the very national security purpose of the

clause. We respectfully request that the Supreme Court grant

certification.

Respectfully submitted,

s/Mario Apuzzo

Mario Apuzzo

cc: A. Genova, Esq.; A. C. Stephens, Esq; N. Purpura; T. Moran

purpura-moran reply letter brief to nj supreme ct filed 8-8-12

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