United States v. Fullard-leo et al. (331 U.S. 256)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 12, 1947 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 331 U.S. 256 · 67 S. Ct. 1287
- Decided
- May 12, 1947
- Term
- October Term 1946
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Reed
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Reed delivered the opinion of the Court. This writ of certiorari was allowed to review a decree of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirming a decree of the District Court of the United States for the District of Hawaii, 329 U. S. 697. The United States began the present proceedings by a petition, filed in the District Court, to quiet title in it to a group of islets in the Pacific, long known as Palmyra Island. Palmyra was annexed to the Kingdom of Hawaii on February 26, 1862, and the United States claims that it remained a part of the governmental lands of Hawaii and passed to the United States by the Joint Resolution of Congress of July 7, 1898, which annexed Hawaii to the United States and accepted for the United States all public, Government or Crown lands and all other public property then belonging to the Republic of Hawaii. The lands and sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii previously had passed directly to the Republic of Hawaii, through the intervening Provisional Government. Palmyra Island is around one thousand miles south of the main Hawaiian group. It is the first considerable body of land in that direction and lies between the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa. The Palmyra group is a coral covered atoll of about fifty islets, some with trees, and extends — reefs, intervening water and land — 5 2/3 sea miles in an easterly…
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