Or there’s how we used to do it before we became a more “just, and progressive” nation Eight enemy saboteurs had been caught sneaking into the USA, and the president had a decision to make: Prosecute the men in federal court, or let the military try them as illegal combatants under the laws of war.
In the summer of 1942, Franklin Roosevelt’s choice was clear. Guilty verdicts in a civilian court would give the men English-speaking Germans trained to pass as Americans at most a few years in a federal prison. “Not enough,” the president told Attorney General Francis Biddle, according to Biddle’s 1962 memoir, In Brief Authority.
Instead, the eight Germans, including one who claimed U.S. citizenship, were tried by the military. Nine weeks after their arrival via submarine on New York and Florida beaches, six had been executed, and two had received long prison sentences.
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They landed about 15 miles from here.