ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OP THE COMMONWEALTH OP PENNSYLVANIA.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality of the wild game statute of Pennsylvania making it unlawful for any unnaturalized foreign born resident to kill wild birds or animals and the validity of such statute as applied to an Italian citizen in view of the treaty with Italy, are stated in the opinion.
The statute violates the Fourteenth Amendment. It deprives persons of liberty and property without due process of law. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 661.
While the legislature may have authority to declare unlawful property which is innocent in itself, yet such power must not be exercised in such a way as to infringe fundamental rights to a greater extent than is absolutely necessary for the accomplishment of the legal purpose in view. Neither Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, nor Geer v. Connecticut, control this case.
The cases of People v. West, 106 N. Y. 293, 297, Osborn v. Charlevoix, 114 Michigan, 655; Luck v. Sears, 29 Oregon, 421; State v. Lewis, 134 Indiana, 250; McConnell v. Mc-Killip, 71 Nebraska, 712, can all be distinguished.
A' State may forbid absolutely the possession of game within its borders because the individual only acquires therein a qualified right of property; it may also forbid the possession of articles which are not adapted to any but an unlawful use and may confiscate articles actually put to an illegal use or found under circumstances, from which it must necessarily be inferred that such articles had been or were about to bé used for an illegal purpose.
Under the terms of the present act the mere possession of property, innocent in itself, and having lawful uses, is made an offence apart from its being used unlawfully and its forfeiture is fixed as part of the penalty.
The legislature cannot provide that implements which are susceptible of beneficial use and which have not been perverted to an unlawful use, be summarily abated or declared forfeited after a hearing, as part of a penalty for the offence of having them in possession.
Shot guns and rifles are articles of property not harmful in themselves, necessary for legitimate uses, and there is no manifest necessity to forbid their possession in order to prevent aliens from hunting game.
The State has not the right to confiscate such property under such circumstances and without a hearing at which he can offer a defence.
The possession of property harmless in itself and which is necessary for lawful purposes cannot be prohibited and the property itself confiscated merely because it is also capable of being put to an illegal use.
The equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment are violated by the act. It forbids the possession of shot guns and rifles by resident aliens alone, thus depriving them of efficient and essential instruments for protection of person and property. It provides for the confiscation of valuable, innocent property when owned by aliens, notwithstanding that it has never been put to any illegal use. It singles out a class for discriminating and hostile legislation. Duncan v. Missouri, 152 U. S. 377, 382; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, 31.
There is a further discrimination against resident aliens as distinguished from non-resident aliens, as the latter are apparently allowed to possess shot guns and rifles, and use them within the State for the purpose of hunting game for periods of ten days, subject only to the general game laws of the State. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 530, 537; State v. Montgomery, 94 Maine, 192; Templar v. Barbers’ Board, 131 Michigan, 254.
These inequalities cannot be justified on the ground of proper classification; see Railway v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 155; Yick Wo. v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369.
The statute contravenes the existing treaty between the United States and Italy of 1871; see Arts. II, III, 17 Stat. 845; and under the favored nation clause, Art. XXIV of that treaty, this statute also violates the provisions of the treaty'with Switzerland of 1855, 9 Stat. 597, putting citizens on a footing of reciprocal equality. By this statute an Italian farmer in Pennsylvania cannot protect his property from birds and dogs even though wild and subject to be killed by citizens. See In re Marshall, 102 Fed. Rep. 325.
The wording of the treaty is plain and shows that the contracting parties intended that their subjects should at least enjoy in the territory of each other the same liberty of carrying on trade and protection and security of their persons and property as natives under like conditions. Maiorano v. Balt. & Ohio R. R. Co., 213 U. S. 268; Crowley v. Christianszon, 137 U. S. 91.
The terms of the act are not limited to any class or nationality whatsoever. An alien merchant or manufacturer who may have spent most of his life in Pennsylvania, adding to its wealth as well as his own, not only may not shoot game, upon his own land, which has been held a right of property in State v. Mallory, 73 Arkansas, 236, but he is not allowed the possession of a shot gun or rifle upon such property for the protection thereof or for use in hunting game in other States where he might lawfully shoot under regulations applying to non-resident aliens.
No State may prohibit the possession of any lawful article of trade and commerce to Italian subjects and at the same time allow its possession by natives without violating the quoted treaty provisions.
In addition to violating the Italian treaty the act violates the treaty with Switzerland by imposing upon Italian subjects more burdensome conditions and other conditions in respect to the possession of property and the exercise of commerce than are imposed upon natives.
Treaties are the supreme law of the land and all state authority is subordinate thereto, especially when the treaty, as in this case, is self-executing, Hadenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 484, and relates to a proper subject of treaty negotiation. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 24. See also Matter of Heff, 197 U. S. 405, 488.
The act of May 8, 1909, of Pennsylvania, making it unlawful for unnaturalized foreign born residents to kill wild game except in defence of person or property and to that end making the possession of shot guns and rifles unlawful, is not unconstitutional under the due process and equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
A State may protect its wild game and preserve it for its own citizens. Geer v. Connecticut, 161 U. S. 519.
A1 State may classify with reference to the evil to be prevented.
The determination of the class from which an evil is mainly to be feared and specialized in the legislation is a practical one dependent upon experience; and this court is slow to declare that the state legislature is wrong in its facts. Adams v. Milwaukee, 228 II. S. 572. A State may direct its police regulations against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuse. Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, 227 II. S. 157.
The provisions in Article II of the treaty with Italy, giving citizens of Italy the right to carry on trade on the same terms as natives of this country, and provisions in the treaty with Switzerland, applicable to citizens of Italy under the favored nation clause in Article XXIV of the treaty with Italy, relate to trade, and are not applicable to personal use of firearms; and a state statute protecting wild game and prohibiting aliens from owning shot guns and rifles is not incompatible with or violative of such treaty provisions.
Quaere, and not to be decided on this record, whether the statute in this case can be construed as precluding an alien from possessing a stock of guns for purposes of trade and whether in that event it would violate rights under the treaty with Italy of 1871.
Equality of rights assured to citizens of Italy 'under the treaty of 1871 is that of protection and security for persons and property and nothing in that treaty purports or attempts to prevent a State from exercising its power for preservation of wild game for its own citizens. ■
