We used to have a coworker in our office who was a former FBI agent. Whenever something hot would break and we went to an almost all hands on deck approach with dealing with the supposed problem, he would exclaim: “Wow, this is probably bigger than the Nazi U Boats landing saboteurs on Long Island”.
The first German in the photograph will be the named party in the legal case that will go all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and the case will proceed in an expedited fashion not known today. They will be charged on July 2, tried, convicted and sentenced to death July 9.
The last appeal of these gentlemen will be decided as EX PARTE QUIRIN, 317 U.S. 1 (1942). It was decided July 31, 1942, and the full opinion was delivered October 29, 1942. It was a Per Curiam opinion, meaning that it is considered a summary disposition of the Court, and there is no dissent.
The issues presented:
“Petitioners’ main contention is that the President is without any statutory or constitutional authority to order the petitioners to be tried by military tribunal for offenses with which they are charged; that in consequence they are entitled to be tried in the civil courts with the safeguards, including trial by jury, which the Fifth and Sixth Amendments guarantee to all persons charged in such courts with criminal offenses. In any case it is urged that the President’s Order, in prescribing the procedure of the Commission and the method for review of its findings and sentence, and the proceedings of the Commission under the Order, conflict with Articles of War adopted by Congress-particularly Articles 38, 43, 46, 50 1/2 and 70-and are illegal and void.”
After going through legal analysis shooting down the claims of the German saboteurs, the Court concludes:
“Accordingly, we conclude that Charge I, on which petitioners were detained for trial by the Military Commission, alleged an offense which the President is authorized to order tried by military commission; that his Order convening the Commission was a lawful order and that the Commission was lawfully constituted; that the petitioners were held in lawful custody and did not show cause for their discharge. It follows that the orders of the District Court should be affirmed, and that leave to file petitions for habeas corpus in this Court should be denied.”
In re Quirin will be cited again in APPLICATION OF YAMASHITA, 327 U.S. 1 (1946), 327 U.S. 1 , which was the appeal of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita from MacArthur’s war tribunal sentencing him to death (which was a 6-2 decision, the dissent is worth reading).
Ex Parte Quirin became relevant again in regard to the detention and trial by military tribunal of the “combatants” held in Guantanamo. I really don’t know what all the legal hue and cry is over the legality of Guantanamo, the tribunals or their authority. Quirin was an enemy combatant, and therefore entitled to more “rights” by the Articles of War than the Guantanamo terrorists, who are NOT combatants and not entitled to protection under the Articles of War. But the salient point of Ex Parte Quirin is that such persons are clearly NOT entitled to the full panoply of criminal rights guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Legal scholars use the term “dispositive,” meaning “this exact issue has already been clearly decided and is not subject to further discussion.”
You can read the full opinion of Ex Parte Quirin here:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=317&invol=1