Johnson v. Eisentrager

Background

Twenty-one German nationals who said they had served German forces in China were captured after World War II, tried by a U.S. Military Commission at Nanking with Chinese consent, convicted for continuing hostile activity after Germany’s surrender, and sent to Germany to serve sentences. They sued in a Washington federal court for habeas corpus (a court order testing lawful imprisonment), seeking release and arguing constitutional and Geneva Convention violations.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court examined whether U.S. civil courts can hear habeas petitions by enemy aliens who were never within U.S. territory and who were captured, tried, convicted, and imprisoned abroad. Relying on history, statutes, and prior decisions, the Court concluded there is no precedent or constitutional text granting such extraterritorial habeas rights to active enemy belligerents. It held military commissions have long authority to try war offenses in the theater of operations, rejected the petitioners’ Geneva Convention and procedural claims as not depriving the commissions of jurisdiction, and reversed the Court of Appeals’ contrary ruling.

Real world impact

The decision means enemy belligerents captured and held entirely outside U.S. territory have limited access to U.S. civilian habeas relief and that commanders’ use of military tribunals for wartime offenses will be less subject to civilian court interference. The ruling rested partly on practical concerns about burdening military operations and on the absence of prior practice extending constitutional protections extraterritorially.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissent argued courts should be allowed limited habeas review to test whether military tribunals were properly constituted and to protect against unlawful imprisonment, especially where the United States governs the territory involved.