Court Opinion

ID: 9651495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:20:15.572883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:28.263516
License: Public Domain

DENMAN, Circuit Judge.
I concur in the orders for the discharge of the writs but dissent from deciding the constitutional question of the jurisdiction or power of the court to issue the writs. This is because the petitions for the writs on their faces fail to show the petitioners belong to the class of persons entitled to the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus — that is, those alleging their illegal imprisonment.1 These clearly are cases in which should be applied the principle that, if possible, a case must be decided on other than constitutional grounds.
The constitutional question presented in the appellants’ points on appeal in both cases is stated as follows:
“I. The pleadings2 consisting of the petition for a writ, order to show cause why a writ should not issue, the return and answer to the petition, to the order to show cause and to the return, and the traverse disclose that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was lawfully suspended and martial law lawfully existed pursuant to public proclamations of the Governor of the Territory of Hawaii issued pursuant to the Organic Act of the Territory; * * *»
In Judge WILBUR’S opinion the constitutional question so presented as to whether the military orders legally deprived the appellees of the privilege of the writ is not only entertained but decided in favor of the appellants. In Judge HEALY’S opinion it is assumed that the constitutional question is decided adversely to the appellants. If his excellent opinion could be construed as holding the *590constitutional question entirely ignored, I would concur in it.
It is my view that the petitions on their faces, taken in connection with facts judicially to be noticed, show no facts invoking the jurisdiction or power of the District Court to issue the writs; that the court should have proceeded no further than to determine that it had no such power; and that it was error in both cases to proceed with hearings on the orders to show cause —all the more so to decide or assume the decision of the question of the existence of the right in the respective petitioners to the constitutional privilege of the writ.
Briefly stated, the fatal defects of the petitions in both cases are that they rest on the assertions, later more fully considered, that no danger of invasion actually existed at any pertinent times warranting the suspension of. the writ, whereas there is no allegation of the sole fact necessary to sustain the petitions, namely, that at none of the pertinent times did the military authorities have reasonable grounds to believe the existence of such danger. As later discussed, the military could have such a belief though no such danger in fact existed. Incidentally, though it seems irrelevant, petitioners did not mend their holds by later pleading. No such allegation appears in the traverses to the returns to the orders to show cause.
Merely because persons are imprisoned does not prima facie give them the right to invoke the power of the court or judge to issue writs of habeas corpus in their behalf. Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 24, 63 S. Ct. 2, 87 L.Ed. 3. The class of persons to whom the constitutional privilege is extended consists of those “unlawfully deprived of their liberty.”3 The petitions on which the instant proceedings rest on their faces show the petitioners are imprisoned on judgments military in character, not unlawful when made nor since become unlawful. The petitions no more show the petitioners belonging to the class having legal interests entitling them to raise the question of the military orders denying to them their constitutional privilege of the writ, than the litigants in many cases have brought themselves within the class having legal interests entitling them to a decision of other constitutional questions. Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1, 43, 43 S.Ct. 470, 67 L.Ed. 839; Blair v. United States, 250 U.S. 273, 279, 39 S.Ct. 468, 63 L. Ed. 979; Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U.S. 531, 545, 34 S.Ct. 359, 58 L.Ed. 713; Municipal Investors Ass’n v. Birmingham, 316 U.S. 153, 155, 62 S.Ct. 975, 86 L.Ed. 1341.
White’s petition fails to state a cause for the issuance of the writ. White’s petition alleges that he was convicted by the Provost Marshal’s court of the crime of embezzlement and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Oahu Prison, where he is confined in the custody of appellant, respondent below. The conviction was on August 25, 1942, within three months of the Battle of Midway, in which engagement two or more large fleets of Japanese war vessels steaming toward the Hawaiian Islands were defeated near the Island of Midway. It could not be contended that there was no Japanese Navy left for a second attempt to invade the Hawaiian Islands.
It is further alleged that on December 7, 1941, the Governor of Hawaii had declared martial law and authorized the Commanding General of the Hawaiian department and his subordinates to exercise the powers normally exercised by the judicial officers of the Territory. It is not contended that this order was invalid when made, Ex parte Zimmerman, 132 F.2d 443, but a mere conclusion of law is stated “that said martial law ceased to exist legally in the Territory prior to said August 25, 1942, when he was tried as aforesaid before said Provost Court.”
The petition does not and could not allege that the civil courts were open and functioning at the time of trial and sentence, but alleges no more than that they were able and ready to perform their normal functions and duties. As showing the fact supporting the legal conclusion that “martial law [had] ceased to exist legally,” it is further alleged that no “such imminent danger of invasion by an enemy force existed as to warrant or justify the denial to petitioner of a trial and hearing before the proper courts in and of the Territory of Hawaii.”
As stated, what makes the petition fatally defective4 is the absence of any allega*591tion that at the time of the trial and conviction on August 25, 1942, the military authorities had no reasonable ground to anticipate or believe that there was a danger of invasion or other military necessity requiring the exercise of all the judicial powers by the military and the denial of the exercise of any judicial power by the civil authorities.
All that is alleged is that in the after-wisdom of March 31, 1944, nineteen months later, no such danger of invasion or military necessity for the exercise by the military of judicial power over nonmilitary offenses in fact existed on August 25, 1942, It is entirely possible that history will show that long before the petitions were filed the Japanese military authorities regarded the invasion of the Hawaiian Islands as impossible and never entertained it at any of the times pertinent to the issues of the petitions.
However, no such after-wise allegations, even if assumed to state the facts, can satisfy the requirement of the allegation of the absence of reasonable ground in the mind of the military commander to apprehend the likelihood of the need to prepare to resist and to resist such an invasion and of the need of such judicial control during such preparation and resistance. Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 94, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774; Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 399, 402, 53 S.Ct. 190, 77 L.Ed. 375.
Concerning the absence of written notice of the charge of embezzlement, I am in agreement with Judge HEALY’S statement. In addition no prejudice is shown and, since the evidence is not before us, we may assume that the petitioner himself testified to facts warranting his conviction. Likewise, I am in agreement with Judge HEALY’S statement regarding the absence of a jury and the character of martial as distinguished from the law of civil courts. White’s petition on its face shows no ground for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus and should have been dismissed on that ground alone.
Duncan’s petition fails to state grounds to invoke the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Duncan was convicted on March 2, 1944, of having assaulted, on February 24, 1944, sentries at the main gate of the Pearl Harbor Reservation, while on the Reservation. Here I am in agreement with Judge Healy’s statement. In addition judicial notice is taken that in time of war military necessity requires the fullest respect be shown to all soldiers in uniform in the performance of their military duties, a fortiori to the Marine sentries guarding the entrance to Pearl Harbor with its fortifications subject to possible sabotage. Equally clear is the military necessity for prompt punishment by the military itself for the maintenance of its discipline and the self-respect of its members and for the command of that respect by civilians.
Duncan’s petition contains allegations similar to those of White’s petition concerning the absence of danger of invasion and the military necessity for such exercise of the judicial power by the military. Nowhere are the required allegations of absence of reasonable apprehension of invasion or the absence of reasonable belief of the military necessity for military adjudication of such an offense as assaulting the sentries as here committed. As stated, it affirmatively appears that such military necessity existed.
The petition for the writ should have been dismissed because stating no cause for the granting of the claimed constitutional privilege. It was error to proceed beyond this and permit the pleadings and proof and issuance of the writ which should have been discharged for no other reason than that last above stated.
STEPHENS, Circuit Judge, did not participate in the decision of these cases.

 28 U.S.C.A. § 455. “Allowance and direction. The court, or justice, or judge to whom such application is made shall forthwith award a writ of habeas corpus, unless it appears from the petition itself that the party is not entitled thereto. The writ shall be directed to the person in whose custody the party is detained.”

 It is suggested the petitions become functus officio on the issue of the writs. It was stipulated in the Duncan case that the return to the order to show cause made before the writ was issued shall be deemed a return to the writ In such a situation the issue is fixed by the petition for the writ and the return to the writ which here joins issue with the petition. Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U.S. 231, 242, 16 S.Ct. 297, 40 L.Ed. 406. Cf. Hammerer v. Huff, 71 App.D.C. 246, 110 P.2d 113, 114, 115. A similar stipulation was made in the White case, where the return to the writ also expressly admits some of the allegations of the petition and denies others, particularly its assertion that no danger of invasion existed. In no sense could it be said that the petition became functus officio on the issuance of the writ. I do not believe Barth v. Clise, 12 Wall. 400, 402, 20 L.Ed. 393, so holds. If it does, it is overruled by Whitten v. Tomlin-son, supra.

 As stated in McNally v. Hill, Warden, 293 U.S. 131, 138, 55 S.Ct. 24, 27, 79 L.Ed. 238, “Without restraint of liberty, the writ will not issue. * * * Equally, without restraint which is unlawful, the writ may not be used.”

 This court in Ex parte Zimmerman, 132 F.2d 442, 446, a case involving the *591same question, in holding that the petition failed to state facts empowering the district court to issue the writ, stated the rule as “ * * * It is true that the averments of petitions for this great writ are not scrutinized with technical nicety; but neither are they taken as importing something other than what they say. The courts, in circumstances like the present, ought to be careful to avoid idle or captious inference.”
The petition is not an inartificially drawn document prepared by a petitioner unskilled in the law, but the product of able members of the Honolulu bar.
In my opinion, the reason for the absence of any allegation that, on August 25, 1942, the military could not reasonably have entertained the idea of a possible invasion for which they must be prepared and on guard, and thus bring the petition within the Hirabayashi case, infra, is because such responsible members of the bar knew such an allegation would be untrue.