reate "immunity to
federal power" these five Justices concluded that Ex parte
Virginia[1234] and United States _v._ Classic[1235] had rejected for all
time the defense that action by state officers in excess of their powers
did not constitute state action "under color of law" and therefore was
punishable, if at all, only as a crime against the State.[1236] The
conviction of Screws was, however, reversed on the ground that the jury
should have been instructed to say whether the accused had had the
"specific intent" to deprive their victim of his constitutional rights,
since in the absence of such a finding Sec. 20 failed for
indefiniteness.[1237] But this construction of the word "willfully"
appears subsequently to have been abandoned, or at least considerably
watered down. In Williams _v._ United States,[1238] decided in April
1951, the Court ruled, by a bare majority, that a conviction under Sec. 20
was not subject to objection on the ground of the vagueness of the
statute where the indictment made it clear that the constitutional right
violated by the defendant was immunity from the use of force and
violence to obtain a confession, and this meaning was also made clear by
the trial judge's charge to the jury.[1239] To the same effect is the
later case of Koehler _v._ United States[1240] in which the Court denied
certiorari in a case closely resembling that of Screws, although the
trial judge, while charging the jury that it must find specific intent,
nevertheless went on to say:"'The color of the act determines the
complexion of the intent. The intent to injure or defraud is presumed
when the unlawful act, which results in loss or injury, is proved to
have been knowingly committed. It is a well settled rule, which the law
applies to both criminal and civil cases, that the intent is presumed
and inferred from the result of the action.'"[1241]

Notes

[1] As to the other categories, see Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 4, Naturalization
(_see_ pp. 254-256).

[2] Scott _v._ Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1897).

[3] Ibid. 404-406, 417-418, 419-420.

[4] By the Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866 (14 Stat. 27), enacted two
years prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, "All persons born in the United
States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not
taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; * * *"

[5] 169 U.S. 649 (1898).--Thus, a person who was born in the United
States of Swedish parents then naturali