Court Opinion

ID: 9421735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:59:36.429724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.949814
License: Public Domain

*237Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Clark joins, dissenting.
The Court today holds that on June 10, 1949, the date of this capital offense, this country was “in time of peace” within the meaning of Article of War 92, 10 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. IV) § 1564, and therefore that the court-martial before which petitioner was tried was without statutory jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding. Believing that the ground upon which the Court nullifies petitioner’s conviction has long been settled squarely to the contrary, and that a de novo examination of the question also requires the conclusion that the United States, on June 10, 1949, was not “in time of peace” within the meaning of Article 92, I respectfully dissent.
In Kahn v. Anderson, 255 U. S. 1, 10, this Court unanimously held that the term “in time of peace” in Article 92 “signifies peace in the complete sense, officially declared.” See also Givens v. Zerbst, 255 U. S. 11, 21. The Court now dismisses this square holding as “dictum” and as “quite unnecessary for the decision,” pointing out that the statement of facts in Kahn shows that the capital offense for which petitioner there was tried was committed before the Armistice which resulted in the termination of active hostilities in World War I, and that the court-martial which tried him was also convened before the Armistice. I think that Kahn can hardly be dismissed so lightly. The conclusion there as to the meaning of “in time of peace” might have been regarded as unnecessary to decision only had the Court, proceeding on a theory entirely different from that which it actually adopted, relied on the date of the offense or of the beginning of trial as dispositive. But plainly the Court did not proceed on any such basis. Rather, it accepted at least arguendo petitioner’s contention that the court-martial which had tried him did not have jurisdiction *238to continue “in time of peace” even a trial previously-begun. It is thus not sound to say that the holding that “peace” in Article 92 “signifies peace in the complete sense, officially declared,” was unnecessary to the decision in Kahn. Given the ground upon which the Court chose to decide the case it was quite indispensable. The idea that the ground on which a court actually decides a case becomes dictum because the case might have been decided on another ground is novel doctrine to me.
I think that Congress, and the military authorities charged with the implementation and enforcement of the Articles of War, should be able to rely on a construction given one of those Articles by a unanimous decision of this Court. The conclusion in Kahn was not reached lightly without full consideration, as is shown by the fact that nearly two pages of the summary of counsels’ argument contained in the report of the case are devoted to a discussion of the question, and another two pages to the Court’s expression of the reasoning underlying its decision on the point. In 1948, 27 years after Kahn and a single year before the prosecution here involved, Congress re-enacted Article 92 without change in the relevant language. The Court now holds that between 1921 and 1949 the meaning of the statute underwent an inexplicable change, and that the authority under the statute then confirmed must now be denied. I see no warrant for thus speculating anew as to the motives of Congress in enacting and re-enacting the phrase “in time of peace” in Article 92.1
*239Entirely apart from Kahn, I think today’s decision is demonstrably wrong. This Court has consistently for nearly 100 years recognized, in many contexts, that a cessation of active hostilities does not denote the end of “war” or the beginning of “peace” as those or similar terms have been used from time to time by Congress in legislation. In McElrath v. United States, 102 U. S. 426, there was before the Court a statute of Congress prohibiting summary dismissal by the President of military officers “in time of peace.” Although I venture to say that almost as many reasons could be conjured up for construing the term loosely in that context as in that now before us, the Court unanimously held that July 1866 was not “in time of peace” although active hostilities between North and South had long since ceased, and that “peace, in contemplation of law” did not exist until the Presidential Proclamation of August 20, 1866. See also United States v. Anderson, 9 Wall. 56. In Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160, 168-169, this Court in construing a statute recognized that “ ‘The state of war’ may be terminated by treaty or legislation or Presidential proclamation. Whatever the mode, its termination is a political act.” See also Woods v. Miller Co., 333 U. S. 138; Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 537, both expressly recognizing that the state of war between this country and the Axis powers was not terminated by either the Presidential Proclamation of 1946 or the Joint Resolution of July 1947.
The Court says that “Congress in drafting laws may decide that the Nation may be ‘at war’ for one purpose, and ‘at peace’ for another.” Of course it may. But the Court points to no case, and I know of none, which has *240construed statutory language similar to that found in Article 92 to mean anything but “peace in the complete sense, officially declared.” Under these circumstances, and given McElrath and Kahn, the conclusion seems to me unmistakable that Congress intended that “peace” in Article 92 mean what we have always, until today, held it meant in this and other congressional legislation. When Congress has wished to define “war” or “peace” in particular statutes as meaning something else, it has explicitly done so. See, e. g., War Brides Act, 59 Stat. 659: “For the purpose of this Act, the Second World War shall be deemed to have commenced on December 7, 1941, and to have ceased upon the termination of hostilities as declared by the President or by a joint resolution of Congress.”
Today’s decision casts a cloud upon the meaning of all federal legislation the impact of which depends upon the existence of “peace” or “war.” Hitherto legislation of this sort has been construed according to well-defined principles, the Court looking to “treaty or legislation or Presidential proclamation,” Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S., at 168, to ascertain whether a “state of war” exists. The Court, in an effort to make a “more particularized and discriminating analysis,” has apparently jettisoned these principles. It is far from clear to me just what has taken their place.2
*241The Court does not reach petitioner’s contention that he could not constitutionally be tried by court-martial because he was not a member of the armed forces at the time this offense was committed. It is sufficient to say that this contention is also squarely foreclosed by Kahn v. Anderson, supra, and that in my opinion nothing in Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11, or in Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, impairs the authority of Kahn on this score.
I would affirm.

 The Court's heavy reliance in construing the statute here involved on its attribution to Congress of “a purpose to guard jealously against the dilution of the liberties of the citizen that would result if the jurisdiction of military tribunals were enlarged at the expense of civil courts” is rendered somewhat suspect, to say the least, by the fact that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 64 Stat. 108, 10 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 801, enacted May 5, 1950, Congress *239has apparently chosen to give courts-martial jurisdiction over capital crimes committed in this country in time of peace as well as in time of war. See 10 U. S. C. (Supp. V) §§ 918, 920.

 The Court does not say when the “peace” which it finds to have existed in June 1949 came into being. It may be noted that the Presidential Proclamation of December 31, 1946, proclaiming the cessation of hostilities, specifically announced that “a state of war still exists,” and that Senate Joint Resolution 123, 61 Stat. 449 (effective July 25, 1947), which repealed or rendered inoperative a selected group of wartime measures (not including Article 92), was obviously an expression of a conscious and deliberate decision by Congress that the time had not yet come to end the state of war. It was not until October 19, 1951, that Congress, by joint resolution, declared that “the state of war declared to exist between the United *241States and the Government of Germany by the joint resolution of Congress approved December 11, 1941, is hereby terminated,” 65 Stat. 451, and not until April 28, 1952, the effective date of the Japanese Peace Treaty, that peace with Japan was proclaimed by the President, 66 Stat. c31.