Johnson v. Eisentrager

Decision Date05 June 1950
Docket NumberNo. 306,306
Citation339 U.S. 763,94 L.Ed. 1255,70 S.Ct. 936
PartiesJOHNSON, Secretary of Defense, et al., v. EISENTRAGER et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

[Syllabus from pages 763-765 intentionally omitted] Mr. Solicitor General Philip B. Perlman, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Messrs. A. Frank Reel, Boston, Mass., Milton Sandberg, New York City, for respondents.

Mr. Justice JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The ultimate question in this case is one of jurisdiction of civil courts of the United States vis-a -vis military authorities in dealing with enemy aliens overseas. The issues come here in this way:

Twenty-one German nationals petitioned the District Court of the District of Columbia for writs of habeas corpus. They alleged that, prior to May 8, 1945, they were in service of German armed forces in China. They amended to allege that their employment there was by civilian agencies of the German Government. Their exact affiliation is disputed, and, for our purposes, immaterial. On May 8, 1945, the German High Command executed an act of unconditional surrender, expressly obligating all forces under German control at once to cease active hostilities. These prisoners have been convicted of violating laws of war, by engaging in, permitting or ordering continued military activity against the United States after surrender of Germany and before surrender of Japan. Their hostile operations consisted principally of collecting and furnishing intelligence concerning American forces and their movements to the Japanese armed forces. They, with six others who were acquitted, were taken into custody by the United States Army after the Japanese surrender and were tried and convicted by a Military Commission constituted by our Commanding General at Nanking by delegation from the Commanding General, United States Forces, China Theatre, pursuant to authority specifically granted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States. The Commission sat in China, with express consent of the Chinese Government. The proceeding was conducted wholly under American auspices and involved no international participation. After conviction, the sentences were duly reviewed and, with immaterial modification, approved by military reviewing authority.

The prisoners were repatriated to Germany to serve their sentences. Their immediate custodian is Commandant of Landsberg Prison, an American Army officer under the Commending General, Third United States Army and the Commanding General, European Command. He could not be reached by process from the District Court. Respondents named in the petition are Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States.

The petition alleges, and respondents denied, that the jailer is subject to their direction. The Court of Appeals assumed, and we do likewise, that, while prisoners are in immediate physical custody of an officer or officers not parties to the proceeding, respondents named in the petition have lawful authority to effect that release.

The petition prays an order that the prisoners be produced before the District Court, that it may inquire into their confinement and order them discharged from such offenses and confinement. It is claimed that their trial, conviction and imprisonment violate Articles I and III of the Constitution, and the Fifth Amendment thereto, and other provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United States and provisions of the Geneva Convention governing treatment of prisoners of war.

A rule to show cause issued, to which the United States made return. Thereupon the petition was dismissed on authority of Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188, 68 S.Ct. 1443, 92 L.Ed. 1898.

The Court of Appeals reversed and, reinstating the petition, remanded for further proceedings. 84 U.S.App.D.C. 396, 174 F.2d 961. It concluded that any person, including an enemy alien, deprived of his liberty anywhere under any purported authority of the United States is entitled to the writ if he can show that extension to his cases of any constitutional rights or limitations would show his imprisonment illegal; that, although no statutory jurisdiction of such cases is given, courts must be held to possess it as part of the judicial power of the United States; that where deprivation of liberty by an official act occurs outside the territorial jurisdiction of any District Court, the petition will lie in the District Court which has territorial jurisdiction over officials who have directive power over the immediate jailer.

The obvious importance of these holdings to both judicial administration and military operations impelled us to grant certiorari. 338 U.S. 877, 70 S.Ct. 158. The case is before us only on issues of law. The writ of habeas corpus must be granted 'unless it appears from the application' that the applicants are not entitled to it. 28 U.S.C. § 2243, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2243.

We are cited to no instance where a court, in this or any other country where the writ is known, has issued it on behalf of an alien enemy who, at no relevant time and in no stage of his captivity, has been within its territorial jurisdiction. Nothing in the text of the Constitution extends such a right, nor does anything in our statutes. Absence of support from legislative or juridical sources is implicit in the statement of the court below that 'The answers stem directly from fundamentals. They cannot be found by casual reference to statutes or cases.' The breadth of the court's premises and solution requires us to consider questions basic to alien enemy and kindred litigation which for some years have been beating upon our doors.1

I.

Modern American law has come a long way since the time when outbreak of war made every enemy national an outlaw, subject to both public and private slaughter, cruelty and plunder. But even by the most magnanimous view, our law does not abolish inherent distinctions recognized throughout the civilized world between citizens and aliens, nor between aliens of friendly and of enemy allegiance,2 nor between resident enemy aliens who have submitted themselves to our laws and nonresident enemy aliens who at all times have remained with, and adhered to, enemy governments.

With the citizen we are now little concerned, except to set his case apart as untouched by this decision and to take measure of the difference between his status and that of all categories of aliens. Citizenship as a head of jurisdiction and a ground of protection was old when Paul invoked it in his appeal to Caesar. The years have not destroyed nor diminished the importance of citizenship nor have they sapped the vitality of a citizen's claims upon his government for protection. If a person's claim to United States citizenship is denied by any official, Congress has directed our courts to entertain his action to declare him to be a citizen 'regardless of whether he is within the United States or abroad.' 54 Stat. 1171, 8 U.S.C. § 903, 8 U.S.C.A. § 903. This Court long ago extended habeas corpus to one seeking admission to the country to assure fair hearing of his claims to citizenship, Chin Yow v United States, 208 U.S. 8, 28 S.Ct. 201, 52 L.Ed. 369, and has secured citizenship against forfeiture by involuntary formal acts, Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 59 S.Ct. 884, 83 L.Ed. 1320.3 Because the Government's obligation of protection is correlative with the duty of loyal support inherent in the citizen's allegiance, Congress has directed the President to exert the full diplomatic and political power of the United States on behalf of any citizen, but of no other, in jeopardy abroad. When any citizen is deprived of his liberty by any foreign government, it is made the duty of the President to demand the reasons and, if the detention appears wrongful, to use means not amounting to acts of war to effectuate his release.4 It is neither sentimentality nor chauvinism to repeat that 'Citizenship is a high privilege.' United States v. Manzi, 276 U.S. 463, 467, 48 S.Ct. 328, 329, 72 L.Ed. 654.

The alien, to whom the United States has been traditionally hospitable, has been accorded a generous and ascending scale of rights as he increases his identity with our society. Mere lawful presence in the country creates an implied assurance of safe conduct and gives him certain rights; they become more extensive and secure when he makes preliminary declaration of intention to become a citizen, and they expand to those of full citizenship upon naturalization. During his probationary residence this Court has steadily enlarged his right against Executive deportation except upon full and fair hearing. The Japanese Immigrant Case (Yamatayo v. Fisher), 189 U.S. 86, 23 S.Ct. 611, 47 L.Ed. 721; Low Wah Suey v. Backus, 225 U.S. 460, 32 S.Ct. 734, 56 L.Ed. 1165; Tisi v. Tod, 264 U.S. 131, 44 S.Ct. 260, 68 L.Ed. 590; United States ex rel. Vajtauer v. Com'r, 273 U.S. 103, 47 S.Ct. 302, 71 L.Ed. 560; Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 65 S.Ct. 1443, 89 L.Ed. 2103; Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U.S. 33, 70 S.Ct. 445. And, at least since 1886, we have extended to the person and property of resident aliens important constitutional guaranties such as the due process of law of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220.

But, in extending constitutional protections beyond the citizenry, the Court has been at pains to point out that it was the alien's presence within its territorial jurisdiction that gave the Judiciary power to act. In the pioneer case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins, the Court said of the Fourteenth Amendment, 'These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; * * *.' (Italics supplied.) 118 U.S. 356, 369, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 1070, 30 L.Ed. 220. And in The Japanese Immigrant Case, the Court held its...

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