Such was the experience of one Kanadi Mohamed Ali, an Israeli citizen whose conviction for knowingly making a false statement under oath relating to naturalization, citizenship, or registry of aliens in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1015(a) has just been upheld by the Sixth Circuit.
Seven years later Ali applied for naturalization. A question on his application form, in a section entitled "Good Moral Character," asked, "Have you ever: . . . been married to more than one person at the same time?" He answered "no".
In a handwritten attachment to the application, Ali disclosed his marriage and divorce to Wife #1 and his second marriage to Wife #2 in Tennessee but he did not mention his first "marriage" to Wife #2. When charged with making a false statement he asserted that under Georgia and Tennessee law, his first attempted marriage to Wife #2 was void ab initio and that, therefore, he was never actually "married" to her while still married to Wife #1. The Sixth Circuit held that although the first purported marriage to the second wife was indeed void ab initio under both Georgia and Tennessee law, a truthful person would not have answered "no" to the question. Furthermore, Ali's asserted defense would nullify all criminal bigamy laws by giving a defendant charged with bigamy a foolproof defense – that he could not have, as a matter of law, committed bigamy because his attempted second marriage was automatically void.