Court Opinion

ID: 9448336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:32:26.803484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:23.491960
License: Public Domain

DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge, whom SOLOMON, District Judge joins
(concurring) .
I concur in the foregoing opinion with some reluctance, because I find it difficult to reconcile the result with the reasoning of the Supreme Court in recent decisions. I believe that the opinion is a complete and accurate statement of the current state of the authorities. I am also of the opinion that when a case is governed by a decision of the Supreme Court that is directly in point, as this case is, it is the duty of an intermediate court, such as ours, to follow that decision, unless it has clearly been overruled, either expressly or by later decisions that are so inconsistent with it that it is quite clear to us that their effect is to overrule it.
A study of the decisions of the Supreme Court upon which petitioner relies leaves me with the conviction that Kahn v. Anderson, 255 U.S. 1, 41 S.Ct. 224, 65 L.Ed. 469 (1920) has not been overruled. The case cited that is most closely in point is United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 76 S.Ct. 1, 100 L.Ed. 8 (1955). Some of the rationale of that case seems to me to be inconsistent with the holding in Kahn, supra, and with our holding in this ease. For example, the court in Toth states on page 15, 76 S.Ct. page 4 that the power granted to Congress to make rules to regulate the Land and Naval Forces “would seem to restrict court-martial jurisdiction to persons who are actually members or part of the armed forces.” Again, at page 17, 76 S.Ct. at page 5 the court states that the “trial of soldiers to maintain discipline is merely incidental to an army’s primary fighting function.” Simcox having been discharged, I find it difficult to see how his conviction is incidental to the Army’s primary fighting function. Moreover, the *748offense of which Simcox was convicted (see 10 U.S.C. § 894) is the very one singled out by the court in Toth (page 20 at FN 17, 76 S.Ct. page 1), as “a particularly sweeping offense” and illustrative of the danger that the court saw in permitting the trial of a discharged soldier for offenses against the code of military justice. Nevertheless, the opinion in Toth makes express reference to Kahn (page 14, 76 S.Ct. page 1) and does not in any way indicate a disagreement with its holding. Under these circumstances, I think that we are compelled to follow Kahn, and that if it is to be overruled, such overruling must come from the Supreme Court and not from us.