Court Opinion

ID: 9426044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:35.107685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.531136
License: Public Domain

*762Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Marshall join,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree that Art. 76 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U. S. C. § 876, does not limit the jurisdiction of federal civil courts to habeas corpus review of court-martial convictions. I therefore join Part II of the Court’s opinion.
I dissent, however, from the Court’s holding in Part III that, as applied to his challenge that the offense charged was not service connected, this serviceman must exhaust every avenue within the military for determination and review of that question, and that, until he does, “federal district courts must refrain from intervention, by way of injunction or otherwise.” The Court imposes this restraint upon the exercise by the District Court of its conceded jurisdiction for reasons that clearly are not persuasive. Moreover, today’s holding departs from an unbroken line of our decisions that — consistent with our basic constitutional tenet that subordinates the military to the civil authority — restricts military cognizance of offenses to the narrowest jurisdiction deemed absolutely necessary, and precludes expansion of military jurisdiction at the expense of the constitutionally preferred civil jurisdiction. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11 (1955); Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1 (1957); McElroy v. Guagliardo, 361 U. S. 281 (1960); Noyd v. Bond, 395 U. S. 683 (1969).
I
It is, of course, settled that federal district courts may not entertain even a habeas corpus application of a serviceman convicted of offenses raising no question of service connection until the serviceman has exhausted all available military remedies, Noyd v. Bond, supra. But our opinion in Noyd carefully distinguished situations presenting challenges to the jurisdiction of the military *763over the persons charged, e. g., Toth v. Quarles, supra; Reid v. Covert, supra; McElroy v. Guagliardo, supra. We noted that in each of those cases the Court “vindicated complainants’ claims without requiring exhaustion of military remedies,” and that “[w]e did so . . . because we did not believe that the expertise of military courts extended to the consideration of constitutional claims of the type presented. Moreover, it appeared especially unfair to require exhaustion of military remedies when the complainants raised substantial arguments denying the right of the military to try them at all.” Noyd, supra, at 696 n. 8.
That statement precisely fits the situation presented by this case. The respondent serviceman raises “substantial arguments denying the right of the military to try [him] at all,” and the Court utterly fails to suggest any special “expertise of military courts,” including the Court of Military Appeals, that even approximates the far greater expertise of civilian courts in the determination of constitutional questions of jurisdiction. Thus there is compelled here the conclusion in favor of civilian court cognizance without prior exhaustion of military remedies that was reached in Toth v. Quarles, Reid v. Covert, and McElroy v. Guagliardo.
The Court provides no reasoned justification for its departure from these holdings in requiring exhaustion in this case.1 The Court’s failure is not surprising since plainly there is wholly lacking in military tribunals the *764qualification ordinarily relied on to justify the exhaustion requirement, namely, the know-how or “expertise” of an agency particularly knowledgeable in the determination of the same or like questions. Military tribunals simply have no special, if any, expertise in the determination of whether the offense charged to respondent was service connected.2 Civilian courts may properly defer to military tribunals when cases involve “extremely technical provisions of the Uniform Code,” Noyd v. Bond, supra, at 696, or where deference may avoid unnecessary friction because the serviceman may well prevail before the military authorities. But this case presents neither situation.
The offense charged here is not enmeshed in “technical provisions of the Uniform Code.” On the contrary, it is a common everyday type of drug offense that federal courts encounter all over the country every day. The Court agrees that a drug transaction is not a service-connected offense merely because the participants are servicemen. Rather, the Court analogizes military tribunals to administrative agencies and imposes the exhaustion requirement familiar in agency cases — and it does so even though the question presented is a constitutional determination whether the military has any jurisdiction to try the serviceman at all. The mere suggestion of such an analogy is well nigh incredible. Military tribunals have no expertise whatever to bring to bear on the determination whether a common everyday practice carried on by civilians becomes service connected when *765carried on by servicemen.3 It is virtually hornbook law that “courts-martial as an institution are singularly inept in dealing with the nice subtleties of constitutional law.” O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U. S. 258, 265 (1969). For “ ‘it is the primary business of armies and navies to fight or be ready to fight wars should the occasion arise.’ ” Id., at 262. Dealing with the “nice subtleties of constitutional law” is, however, a (if not the) primary business of civilian federal judges. It baffles me therefore how the Court can conclude that courts-martial or other military tribunals can be assigned on grounds of expertise, in preference to civilian federal judges, the responsibility for constitutional decisionmaking.
The Court’s grounding of its requirement of deference to the military on the notion that respondent may prevail on his claim that the offense was not service connected is equally bafHing. Petitioners concede that “the holdings of the Court of Military Appeals with regard to the ‘service connection’ of various kinds of drug offenses suggest that such a challenge to court-martial jurisdiction would probably have been unsuccessful.” Brief for Petitioners on Jurisdictional Issues 19. A cursory survey *766of decisions of the Court of Military Appeals suggests that petitioners might well have made a more positive concession. See United States v. Rose, 19 U. S. C. M. A. 3, 41 C. M. R. 3 (1969); United States v. Beeker, 18 U. S. C. M. A. 563, 40 C. M. R. 275 (1969); United States v. Teasley, 22 U. S. C. M. A. 131, 46 C. M. R. 131 (1973). One of the latest is United States v. Sexton, 23 U. S. C. M. A. 101, 48 C. M. R. 662 (1974), which held that off-post sales and transfers of marihuana, as in this case, by a serviceman to an undercover serviceman agent was service connected. That track record of the Court of Military Appeals clearly compels the conclusion that where “the highest court available under the Uniform Code of Military Justice has consistently upheld jurisdiction over persons in the same legal posture as [respondent, he] should not be required to await a similar decision in his case.” United States ex rel. Guagliardo v. McElroy, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 112, 114 n. 4, 259 F. 2d 927, 929 n. 4 (1958), aff’d, 361 U. S. 281 (1960).
I would conclude, therefore, that the Court of Appeals properly affirmed the action of the District Court in refusing to defer to the military, and in deciding the jurisdictional question of service connection. In that circumstance, I reach the merits. I conclude that the offense was not service connected and would affirm the Court of Appeals’ affirmance of the District Court’s injunction against respondent’s court-martial.
II
In Relford v. U. S. Disciplinary Commandant, 401 U. S. 355, 365 (1971), this Court identified 12 factors that O’Callahan v. Parker, supra, held should be weighed in determining whether an offense is service connected:
“1. The serviceman’s proper absence from the base.
*767“2. The crime’s commission away from the base.
“3. Its commission at a place not under military control.
“4. Its commission within our territorial limits and not in an occupied zone of a foreign country.
“5. Its commission in peacetime and its being unrelated to authority stemming from the war power.
“6. The absence of any connection between the defendant’s military duties and the crime.
“7. The victim’s not being engaged in the performance of any duty relating to the military.
“8. The presence and availability of a civilian court in which the case can be prosecuted.
“9. The absence of any flouting of military authority.
'TO. The absence of any threat to a military post.
“11. The absence of any violation of military property.
“12. The offense’s being among those traditionally prosecuted in civilian courts.” 401 U. S., at 365.
In weighing these factors, service connection cannot be established in this case. Respondent was properly absent from the post; the offense occurred in respondent’s off-post apartment, while he was off duty; it was committed in the United States in peacetime; there was no connection between respondent’s military duties and the crime; the offense is one which is prosecuted regularly in civilian courts, and these courts were available; and there was no threat to the security of the post or its property, or any flouting of military authority.
It is true that the undercover serviceman was performing a duty assigned to him by his military superiors. But this does not eliminate factor 7, for petitioners candidly admit that “Skaggs, was in fact an undercover *768agent and hence not a 'victim’ any more than in a civilian prosecution it would matter that a drug sale was made to a plainclothes policeman who did not intend to use the drug.” Brief for Petitioners on Merits 5. See also Schroth v. Warner, 353 F. Supp. 1032, 1044 (Haw. 1973), holding that a military undercover agent “is not performing a function which has any special military significance.”
But the petitioners urge that military significance is present in “the bearing of the offense in question on the discipline, morale, and effectiveness of fighting forces,” Brief for Petitioners on Merits 4, and that this suffices to establish, for two reasons, that the offense is service connected. First, respondent, an officer, knew that he was dealing with an enlisted man, and that “in the tightly-knit, rumor-prone society of the military, word will usually circulate among the enlisted ranks concerning an officer’s participation in such unlawfulness,” id., at 5, causing a breakdown in military discipline, effectiveness, and morale. Second, “possession of marijuana and other proscribed drugs, whether off base or on,” id., at 6, tends to impair the effectiveness of the Armed Forces.4
*769Neither reason is supported by the record. Respondent was stationed at Fort Sill, and the offense occurred in the civilian community of Lawton, Okla., while respondent was off duty, and out of uniform. The petitioners introduced no evidence that respondent’s actions in any way impaired or threatened to impair the discipline and effectiveness of military personnel at Fort Sill. Similarly, and related, the record is devoid of any evidence whatever that use of marihuana in any amounts under any circumstances adversely affects a serviceman’s performance of his duties. Whatever might be the judgment of medical, psychological, and sociological research in these particulars, none was introduced in this record.
I would affirm.

 The Court would distinguish Toth, Reid, and McElroy on the ground that civilians, not servicemen, challenged the military’s jurisdiction. But Noyd v. Bond did not rely on that fact. Rather, we focused on the lack of expertise of military courts-martial to deal with federal jurisdictional and constitutional issues. “[W]e did not believe that the expertise of military courts extended to the consideration of constitutional claims of the type presented.” 395 U.'S. 683, 696 n. 8 (1969).

 The Court's reliance upon decisions restraining federal-court intervention in state criminal proceedings is misplaced. Ante, at 754-757. Those decisions invoke considerations of comity, equity, and general principles of “Our Federalism” which counsel against interference by the federal judicial system with proceedings pending in a state judicial system having like competence to decide federal constitutional questions. Military tribunals plainly lack a comparable competence.

 The Court pays deserved respect to the fairness of the military justice system, observing that one of its “critical element [s] . . . is the Court of Military Appeals consisting of civilian judges ‘completely removed from all military influence or persuasion,’ who would gain over time thorough familiarity with military problems,” ante, at 758, and adding “the view that the military court system generally is adequate to, and responsibly will, perform its assigned task.” Ibid. I agree, but “thorough familiarity with military problems” is not “thorough familiarity” with constitutional problems of jurisdiction. The problem presented by this case is not a traditional “military problem.” It is a constitutional question whether the military has any jurisdiction whatever to try respondent for the offense charged. That is the type of question rarely confronted by the Court of Military Appeals and certainly even more rarely by other military tribunals, composed of other servicemen, and, at least in the case of cpurts-martial, convened only for a single case.

 Petitioners’ arguments were effectively rejected only six years ago in O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U. S. 258 (1969). There, the Government argued that because Toth, Reid, and McElroy all concluded that courts-martial were without jurisdiction to try nonmilitary personnel “no matter how intimate the connection between their offense and the concerns of military discipline,” it follows “that once it is established that the accused is a member of the Armed Forces, lack of relationship between the offense and identifiable military interests is irrelevant to the jurisdiction of a court-martial.” Id., at 267. We held that although military status is essential to court-martial jurisdiction, “it does not follow that ascertainment of 'status’ completes the inquiry, regardless of the nature, time, and place of the offense.” Ibid.