Chapter 26 - Military Detention

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Alien Enemy Act50 U.S.C. §21 (2000)

Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.

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Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)

What was ordered? What was the role of detention?

What if they were on the East Coast? What was the rationale for why they posed a

danger to the US? What happened to the detainee's property?

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Justice Black

Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers— and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies—we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order.

We uphold the exclusion order as of the time it was made and when the petitioner violated it. In doing so, we are not unmindful of the hardships imposed by it upon a large group of American citizens. But hardships are part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships.

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Justice Frankfurter

Therefore, the validity of action under the war power must be judged wholly in the context of war. That action is not to be stigmatized as lawless because like action in times of peace would be lawless. To talk about a military order that expresses an allowable judgment of war needs by those entrusted with the duty of conducting war as ‘‘an unconstitutional order’’ is to suffuse a part of the Constitution with an atmosphere of unconstitutionality. The respective spheres of action of military authorities and of judges are of course very different. But within their sphere, military authorities are no more outside the bounds of obedience to the Constitution than are judges within theirs.

6

Justice Murphy - Dissenting

The judicial test of whether the Government, on a plea of military necessity, can validly deprive an individual of any of his constitutional rights is whether the deprivation is reasonably related to a public danger that is so ‘‘immediate, imminent, and impending’’ as not to admit of delay and not to permit the intervention of ordinary constitutional processes to alleviate the danger. Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, banishing from a prescribed area of the Pacific Coast ‘‘all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien,’’ clearly does not meet that test.

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Justice Jackson - Dissenting

[T]he ‘‘law’’ which this prisoner is convicted of disregarding is not found in an act of Congress, but in a military order. Neither the Act of Congress nor the Executive Order of the President, nor both together, would afford a basis for this conviction. It rests on the orders of General DeWitt. And it is said that if the military commander had reasonable military grounds for promulgating the orders, they are constitutional and become law, and the Court is required to enforce them. There are several reasons why I cannot subscribe to this doctrine.

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Implications of the Ruling

Has it subsequently been overruled by the United States Supreme Court?

Do you think it could happen again?

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Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944)

Endo is a fascinating case that explains the basis for the use of internment camps and the system for granting leave to detained persons.

The court found in Endo that once the government had decided that a detained individual was a loyal citizen and eligible for release, their statutory authority to detain was ended and the person must be released.

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Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944): Explaining the Camps

"When compulsory evacuation from the West Coast was decided upon, plans for taking care of the evacuees after their detention in the Assembly Centers, to which they were initially removed, remained to be determined. On April 7, 1942, the Director of the Authority held a conference in Salt Lake City with various state and federal officials including the Governors of the inter-mountain states. 'Strong opposition was expressed to any type of unsupervised relocation and some of the Governors refused to be responsible for maintenance of law and order unless evacuees brought into their States were kept under constant military surveillance.' As stated by General De Witt in his report to the Chief of Staff: 'Essentially, military necessity required only that the Japanese population be removed from the coastal area and dispersed in the interior, where the danger of action in concert during any attempted enemy raids along the coast, or in advance thereof as preparation for a full scale attack, would be eliminated. That the evacuation program necessarily and ultimately developed into one of complete Federal supervision, was due primarily to the fact that the interior states would not accept an uncontrolled Japanese migration.'"

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Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)

Who are the defendants? What are they accused of and where were

they apprehended? Are any US citizens? How are they being tried? What are they appealing in this case?

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Why are Military Tribunals Being Used?

By the Articles of War, 10 U.S.C. §§1471-1593, Congress has provided rules for the government of the Army. . . . But the Articles also recognize the ‘‘military commission’’ appointed by military command as an appropriate tribunal for the trial and punishment of offenses against the law of war not ordinarily tried by court martial.

By the Articles of War, and especially Article 15, Congress has explicitly provided, so far as it may constitutionally do so, that military tribunals shall have jurisdiction to try offenders or offenses against the law of war in appropriate cases.

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What Makes an Offense Against the Law Of War?

We may assume that there are acts regarded in other countries, or by some writers on international law, as offenses against the law of war which would not be triable by military tribunal here, either because they are not recognized by our courts as violations of the law of war or because they are of that class of offenses constitutionally triable only by a jury. It was upon such grounds that the Court denied the right to proceed by military tribunal in Ex parte Milligan, supra. But as we shall show, these petitioners were charged with an offense against the law of war which the Constitution does not require to be tried by jury.

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Lawful and Unlawful Combatants

Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.

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Examples of Unlawful Combatants

The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.

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The Charges

Specification 1 states that petitioners ‘‘being enemies of the United States and acting for . . . the German Reich, a belligerent enemy nation, secretly and covertly passed, in civilian dress, contrary to the law of war, through the military and naval lines and defenses of the United States . . . and went behind such lines, contrary to the law of war, in civilian dress . . . for the purpose of committing . . . hostile acts, and, in particular, to destroy certain war industries, war utilities and war materials within the United States.’’

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5th and 6th Amendment Claims

Presentment by a grand jury and trial by a jury... But they were procedures unknown to military tribunals, which are not courts in the sense of the Judiciary Article...

...[W]e must conclude that §2 of Article III and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments cannot be taken to have extended the right to demand a jury to trials by military commission, or to have required that offenses against the law of war not triable by jury at common law be tried only in the civil courts.

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What about Milligan?

...the Court concluded that Milligan, not being a part of or associated with the armed forces of the enemy, was a non-belligerent, not subject to the law of war save as—in circumstances found not there to be present and not involved here—martial law might be constitutionally established.

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The Holding

We have no occasion now to define with meticulous care the ultimate boundaries of the jurisdiction of military tribunals to try persons according to the law of war. It is enough that petitioners here, upon the conceded facts, were plainly within those boundaries, and were held in good faith for trial by military commission, charged with being enemies who, with the purpose of destroying war materials and utilities, entered or after entry remained in our territory without uniform—an offense against the law of war.

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Subsequent History?

What happened to defendants BEFORE the final court opinion was handed down?

Was the court anticipating this? Might it have changed their views?

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Is Quirin Useful Precedent in a War on Terror?

Think about our discussions about the problems of deciding when an imperfect war ends and who is a combatant.

What problems does this pose in figuring out what Quirin means in the war on terror?

Why was it easy to decide they were enemy combatants?

22

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)

Where was Hamdi arrested? Where was Hamdi born? When can the government detain a citizen under

the military order? NB - one of the Quirin spies was a US citizen

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The Governments' Factual Case

The legal authority is the AUMF The first factual basis is that he was in

Afghanistan, and that is enough. Did the court think that fit the AUMF?

Second, that the court should defer to the president's decision to detain.

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The Mathews Test: Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976)

Mathews dictates that the process due in any given instance is determined by weighing ‘‘the private interest that will be affected by the official action’’ against the Government’s asserted interest, ‘‘including the function involved’’ and the burdens the Government would face in providing greater process.

The Mathews calculus then contemplates a judicious balancing of these concerns, through an analysis of ‘‘the risk of an erroneous deprivation’’ of the private interest if the process were reduced and the ‘‘probable value, if any, of additional or substitute safeguards.’

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Applying Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976)

‘‘In our society liberty is the norm,’’ and detention without trial ‘‘is the carefully limited exception.’’ [United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (1987)]

On the other side of the scale are the weighty and sensitive governmental interests in ensuring that those who have in fact fought with the enemy during a war do not return to battle against the United States.

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The Holding

We therefore hold that a citizen-detainee seeking to challenge his classification as an enemy combatant must receive notice of the factual basis for his classification, and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government’s factual assertions before a neutral decisionmaker.

At the same time, the exigencies of the circumstances may demand that, aside from these core elements, enemy combatant proceedings may be tailored to alleviate their uncommon potential to burden the Executive at a time of ongoing military conflict. ... Thus, once the Government puts forth credible evidence that the habeas petitioner meets the enemy combatant criteria, the onus could shift to the petitioner to rebut that evidence with more persuasive evidence that he falls outside the criteria.

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Limits to the Holding to Protect the Government's Interests

The parties agree that initial captures on the battlefield need not receive the process we have discussed here; that process is due only when the determination is made to continue to hold those who have been seized. The Government has made clear in its briefing that documentation regarding battlefield detainees already is kept in the ordinary course of military affairs. Any factfinding imposition created by requiring a knowledgeable affiant to summarize these records to an independent tribunal is a minimal one. Likewise, arguments that military officers ought not have to wage war under the threat of litigation lose much of their steam when factual disputes at enemy-combatant hearings are limited to the alleged combatant’s acts.

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The Invitation to Congress

Likewise, we have made clear that, unless Congress acts to suspend it, the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance, serving as an important judicial check on the Executive’s discretion in the realm of detentions.

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When does Right to Counsel Vest?

Hamdi asks us to hold that the Fourth Circuit also erred by denying him immediate access to counsel upon his detention and by disposing of the case without permitting him to meet with an attorney. Since our grant of certiorari in this case, Hamdi has been appointed counsel, with whom he has met for consultation purposes on several occasions, and with whom he is now being granted unmonitored meetings. He unquestionably has the right to access to counsel in connection with the proceedings on remand. No further consideration of this issue is necessary at this stage of the case.

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Souter and Ginsberg

Why do they say the government cannot use the AUMF to hold Hamdi?

By holding him incommunicado, however, the Government obviously has not been treating him as a prisoner of war, and in fact the Government claims that no Taliban detainee is entitled to prisoner of war status. This treatment appears to be a violation of the Geneva Convention provision that even in cases of doubt, captives are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war ‘‘until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.’’

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Scalia

How did Scalia distinguish Quirin from Hamdi? What does Scalia think of the claims by the

President that he has the authority to try citizens held on US soil, with a military tribunal?

What is only basis for denying habeas corpus to a citizen on US soil that Scalia would accept?

Given this, why was Scalia so skeptical about Rasul?

32

Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950)

Why were defendant's just treated as prisoners of war? U.S. armed forces captured 21 German nationals in

service of German armed forces in China. A U.S. military commission sitting in China tried and convicted them of violating laws of war, namely, engaging in, permitting, or ordering continued military activity against the United States after the surrender of Germany and before the surrender of Japan.

This is an important case to read, but we have already seen it in other cases.