## Facts

- O. B. Williams and Lillie Hendrix were domiciled in North Carolina and each was married to another person.
- They traveled to Nevada, obtained ex parte divorce decrees there, and their North Carolina spouses were served only by substituted service.
- After obtaining the Nevada divorces, Williams and Hendrix married each other in Nevada and returned to North Carolina to live together.
- North Carolina prosecuted them for bigamous cohabitation, asserting the Nevada divorces were void because neither defendant had acquired a bona fide Nevada domicile.
- After an earlier Supreme Court reversal of their first convictions, North Carolina retried the case and squarely litigated whether defendants had established Nevada domicile.
- The trial court instructed that Nevada’s domicile finding was prima facie evidence but not conclusive; the jury could reject it based on contrary proof.
- The jury found defendants had not abandoned their North Carolina domicile and convicted them; the state appellate court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause requires North Carolina to recognize Nevada divorce decrees when North Carolina re-examines and rejects Nevada’s jurisdictional finding of domicile.
2. Whether due process is violated by convicting defendants of bigamous cohabitation when they claim reliance on the Nevada decrees and ignorance of the domicile defect.
3. Whether the prior Supreme Court decision barred North Carolina from relitigating domicile on retrial.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions.
- A sister state may collaterally impeach an out-of-state divorce decree by proving the rendering court lacked jurisdiction because no bona fide domicile existed.
- North Carolina could submit the domicile issue to a jury and, upon a finding of no Nevada domicile, refuse recognition of the Nevada decrees consistent with full faith and credit.
- Due process was not violated by punishing defendants for conduct made criminal by jurisdictional facts they claimed not to know.
- The earlier Supreme Court decision did not preclude a second trial on domicile because that jurisdictional question had not been resolved against North Carolina.

## Legal Principles

- Divorce jurisdiction, as a constitutional matter, rests on bona fide domicile; domicile is a jurisdictional fact rather than a mere merits determination.
- Full faith and credit does not require acceptance of a sister-state divorce decree if the rendering state lacked jurisdiction; jurisdiction may be challenged even if the decree recites jurisdiction.
- A rendering court’s jurisdictional finding is entitled to significant evidentiary weight, but it may be treated as prima facie and rebuttable by the state resisting recognition.
- The Constitution does not require a state to excuse criminal liability based on ignorance of jurisdictional facts that make the conduct criminal.

## Conclusion

North Carolina could refuse to recognize the Nevada divorces after proving lack of Nevada domicile, and the defendants’ reliance on the decrees did not constitutionally bar their convictions for bigamous cohabitation.


Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226 (1945)