Reid v. Covert

Appellant
Curtis Reid, Superintendent of the District of Columbia Jail
Appellee
Clarice B. Covert
Appellant's Claim
That a district court wrongfully issued a writ of habeas corpus for Covert, who was awaiting retrial on murder charges.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Marvin E. Frankel
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Frederick Bernays Weiner
Justices for the Court
Tom C. Clark (writing for the Court), Harold Burton, John Marshall Harlan II,Sherman Minton, Charles Evans Whittaker
Justices Dissenting
Hugo Lafayette Black, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, (Felix Frankfurter didnot participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
11 June 1956
Decision
Reserved the lower court's issuance of the writ.
Significance
The Court ruled that a section of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, regarding trials for civilians who commit crimes abroad, was constitutional. The issue, however was not definitively settled here, as the Court reheard the case the following year.
After World War II, America took on new responsibilities as a world power. Bythe mid-1950s, U.S. armed forces were stationed in more than 60 countries, and spouses and children often accompanied military personnel on their foreignassignments. By executive order, the United States had agreements with somecountries, such as England and Japan, that if these civilian relatives committed a crime, they would be tried in American court-martials, not the native courts.
The military's authority to try civilians abroad rested in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ, enacted in 1950, codified the judicial system for all branches of the military. Article 2 (11) of the code stated relativesaccompanying armed forces personnel abroad were subject to trial in a court-martial for any crimes they committed outside the continental United States. This section of the UCMJ was at the heart of Reid v. Covert.
Clarice Covert was married to Edward Covert, a sergeant in the U.S. Air Forcestationed in England. Mrs. Covert murdered her husband on the air base and was tried by a court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. Covert was flown to the United States and confined in a federal prison in WestVirginia. She appealed her verdict, and on a legal technicality, the U.S. Court of Military Appeals set aside her conviction. The court ordered that shereceive a new trial at an air base in Washington, D.C. Covert was transferredto a Washington jail to await this second trial.
During her stay in Washington, Covert sought a writ of habeas corpus in district court. The district court issued the writ, and the government appealed to the Supreme Court.
Two Cases, One Outcome
At the same time the Court agreed to hear Reid, it took on a similar case, Kinsella v. Krueger. Like Clarice Covert, Dorothy Kinsella Smithhad lived abroad with her husband, a U.S. Army colonel. Like Covert, KinsellaSmith murdered her husband and was sentenced by a court-martial to life imprisonment. Kinsella Smith, however, had been denied a writ of habeas corpus by a different district court. Now, the Supreme Court issued different decisions, but with the same outcome.
In a 5-3 vote, with Justice Frankfurter reserving judgment, the Court reversed the lower court's granting of a writ to Covert and affirmed the denial of awrit for Kinsella Smith. Both women had claimed Article 2 (11) of the UCMJ was unconstitutional; Covert, in addition, argued she was no longer under thejurisdiction of the court-martial once she left England and returned to America.
Justice Clark wrote the decision for both cases, and he addressed the constitutional issue in Kinsella. The Court, Clark said, has long held that Congress can set up courts outside of the United States, and "the procedure insuch tribunals need not comply with the standards prescribed by the Constitution for Article 3 Courts." (Article 3 outlines the federal court system.) Congress thus had authority to include in the UCMJ court-martials for civiliansliving abroad.
In his Reid decision, Clark also dismissed the claim that the court-martial no longer had jurisdiction for Covert's case. He wrote:

An entirely different case might be presented if Mrs. Covert had terminated her status as a person "accompanying the armed forces without the continental limits of the United States" by returning to this country voluntarily. But this is not the case. The issue here is whether we should create an exception to the general rule that jurisdiction of a tribunal, once acquired, continues until final disposition . . . It would be unreasonable to hold that the servicesretained jurisdiction of military prisoners that they kept in foreign countries but lost jurisdiction of prisoners confined in penal institutions in the United States.

Time On Covert's Side?
The Supreme Court had acted with unusual speed on Reid and Kinsella. It agreed to hear the cases in March 1956 and decided the cases less than three months later, on the last day of the Court's term. That quickness led to Justice Frankfurter's reservation of a judgment. "Reflection is a slow process," he wrote. "Wisdom, like good wine, requires maturing."
Haste was also on the minds of the three dissenters, Chief Justice Warren andJustices Black and Douglas. They issued this brief statement:

Thedecisions just announced have far-reaching importance. They subject to military court-martial, even in time of peace, the wives, mothers and children ofmembers of the Armed Forces serving abroad even though these dependents haveno connection whatever with the Armed Forces except their kinship to militarypersonnel and their presence abroad. The questions raised are complex, the remedy drastic, and the consequences far-reaching upon the lives of civilians.The military is given new powers not hitherto thought consistent with our scheme of government. For these reasons, we need more time than is available inthese closing days of the Term in which to write our dissenting views.

The complexity and seriousness of Reid, perhaps coupled with the concerns over the speed of the deliberations, worked in Covert's favor. She askedfor a rehearing of the case, and on 5 November 1956, six justices agreed. Therehearing in 1957 resulted in the Court's deciding that military courts hadno jurisdiction over a civilian.
Related Cases

• McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819).
  
• Missouri v. Holland, 525 U.S. 416 (1920).
  
• Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11 (1955).
  
• Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957).