Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1873-06-08
Military Jurisdiction Defined.


:
Francis Leiber, l.. l.. d., revised by board
of officers, of which General E. A. Hitch
cock was President, and after approval by
the President of the United States, were
published for the government of the ar
mics of the United States in the field. Sec
ion 13 of these instructions is as follows
military Jurisdiction is of two kinds !:
First, that which is conveyed and defined
by statute. Second, that which is derived
from the common law of war military of
fences, which, under the statute law, must
be tried in the manner therein dictated !;
but military offenses which do not come
under the statute, must be tried and pun
ished under the common law of war. The
character of the courts which exercise
these jurisdictions depends upon the local
laws of each particular county. In the
armies of the United States, the first is
exercised by courts martial while the cases
which do not come within the rules and
articles of war or the jurisdiction confer
red by the statute on Courts Martial are
tried by military commissions. All the
authorities which have been aDle to ex-
anime upon this subject harmonic with
these instructions.
According to the laws of war there is
nothing more sacred than a flag of truce
dispatched in good faith and there can be
no greater act of perfidy and treachery
than the assassination of its bearers, after
they have been acknowledged and receiv-
ed by those to whom they are sent. No
statute of the United States makes this act
a crime and therefore it is not punishable
under the rules and articles of war, and if
punishable at all, must be through pow
er derived from the uSageS of war.
Kindred to the act in question in bad
faith is the breaking of his parole by pa
rolled prisoner. While the United States
were at war with Mexico, several officers
of the Mexican army were tried by mill
tary commission composed of officers of
the United States army, convicted and
sentenced to be shot and executed for
breaking their parole. Numerous trials of
similar nature took place during the war
of the rebellion, but there are no statutory
provisions whatever upon the subject, and
the whole power of the military authori-
ties in such cases is derived from the usages
of war.
On the 23d of August, 1865 military COM
mission, duly appointed, assembled in the
| City of Washington for the trial of Henry
Wirz, who pleaded among other things
that the Military Commission had no jul
| risdiction over either his person or over
| the subject matter of the charges and spec
| fications, it being tribunal unauthorized
| by either statute or military law martial
| law or well-established usage. But this
plea was overruled, and he was convicted
upon several charges, one of which was
murder, in violation of the laws and GUS
toms of war, and after sentence he was
| hung for his crimes.
| All the proceedings in this case derive
their authority and validity from the COM
mon law of war. Certain persons, it will
be remembered, were tried and convicted
in the same way for the assassination of
President Lincoln.
The law of nations, which is the result
of the experience and wisdom of ages, has
decided that jayhawkers, banditti, &C., are
offenders against the laws of nations and of
war, and as such are amenable to the mill
tary. Our constitution has made these laws
a part of the law of the land. See, also,
Vattel, page $50; Wheaton's Institute
Law, 406 Woolsey's International Law,
,22O; Halleck's International Law, 400.
IMilligan' scase, 4th Wallace, ,page2, holds,