Habeas Corpus in The United States - Habeas Corpus During World War II

Habeas Corpus During World War II

Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the governor of Hawaii, Joseph Poindexter, invoked the Hawaiian Organic Act, 31 Stat. 141 (1900), suspended habeas corpus, and declared martial law. Hawaii was governed by Lieutenant Generals Walter Short, Delos Emmons, and Robert C. Richardson, Jr. for the remainder of the war. In Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U.S. 304 (1946), the United States Supreme Court held that the declaration of martial law did not permit the trial of civilians in military tribunals for offenses unrelated to the military (in this case, public drunkenness).

In 1942, eight German saboteurs, including two U.S. citizens, who had entered the United States were convicted by a secret military court set up by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Ex parte Quirin (1942) the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the writ of habeas corpus did not apply, and that the military tribunal had jurisdiction to try the saboteurs, due to their status as unlawful combatants.

In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor martial law was declared in Hawaii and habeas corpus was suspended, pursuant to a section of the Hawaiian Organic Act. The period of martial law in Hawaii ended in October 1944. It was held in Duncan v. Kahanamoku (1946) that although the initial imposition of martial law in December 1941 may have been lawful, due to the Pearl Harbor attack and threat of imminent invasion, by 1944 the imminent threat had receded and civilian courts could again function in Hawaii. The Organic Act therefore did not authorize the military to continue to keep civilian courts closed.

After the end of the war, several German prisoners held in American-occupied Germany petitioned the District Court for the District of Columbia for a writ of habeas corpus. In Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950) the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the American court system had no jurisdiction over German war criminals who had been captured in Germany, and had never entered U.S. soil.