Toth v. Quarles

Appellant
Audrey M. Toth
Appellee
Donald A. Quarles, Secretary of the U.S. Air Force
Appellant's Claim
That the U.S. District Court of Appeals erred in holding Robert Toth liable to prosecution under Article 3(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
William A. Kehoe, Jr.
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Simon E. Sobeloff, Solicitor General; Lt. Col. Chester W. Wilson
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), Tom C. Clark, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, John Marshall Harlan II, Earl Warren
Justices Dissenting
Harold Burton, Sherman Minton, Stanley Forman Reed
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
7 November 1955
Decision
The appeals court decision was reversed, allowing Toth to avoid prosecution.
Significance
The decision declared the 1950 Uniform Code of Military Justice to be unconstitutional, thus barring trials of civilians for crimes committed while in thearmed forces.
A Death In Korea
Robert Toth was a civilian when military police arrived at the Pittsburgh steel plant where he worked, to arrest him. Five months had passed since he hadbeen honorably discharged from the United States Air Force. Still, Toth was charged with murder, a crime of sufficient seriousness to allow the former sergeant's prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Toth and another airman, Thomas Kinder, had been on guard duty at an airbasein South Korea on 27 September 1952, when they discovered a civilian, Bang Soon Kil, who appeared to be drunk. Bang Soon was taken into custody. While being driven to the base headquarters, he grabbed at Toth's sidearm. Toth allegedly stopped the jeep and pistol-whipped the prisoner. When the two airmen arrived at headquarters, their commanding officer, Lieutenant George Schreiber,ordered them to take Bang Soon away and shoot him.
By the time military authorities discovered the murder, Toth had been honorably discharged, but his two colleagues were still in the air force. Both werecourt-martialed. Schreiber was sentenced to life imprisonment, but the punishment was reduced to five years, forfeiture of pay, and a dishonorable discharge. Kinder was also sentenced to life imprisonment, but the term was reducedto two years and a dishonorable discharge. Toth had returned to civilian life, but military prosecutors indicted him under the Article 3(a) of the 1950 Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to the code, anyone who had left the service remained liable to prosecution if the penalty for their alleged offense exceeded five years and the case could not be tried by a civilian court.Because Toth's case fit the guidelines, he was arrested on 13 May 1953 and returned to South Korea to stand trial by court martial.
Toth's sister Audrey immediately filed for a writ of habeas corpus. Adistrict court order stalled the proceedings against Toth on the ground thatthe military had no power to apprehend a civilian and hold him for trial. Toth was returned to the United States and released on bail. Although Toth fought the indictment on the ground that he was a civilian and could not be triedby a military court, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on 25 March 1954 that hewas still liable to be tried for murder. The court ruled that Toth's honorable discharge did not excuse him from charges for crimes that might have occurred while he was still in the service. Naming Air Force Secretary Donald A. Quarles as the government's representative in the suit, Toth appealed the decision, attempting to reinstate the original district court ruling placing himbeyond the reach of military authorities. As a jurisdictional dispute betweendifferent branches of government, the case was now a constitutional issue and eligible for appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A Gap In Jurisdiction
When it was argued on 8 and 9 February 1955, only eight members of the Courtheard the Toth case because of Justice Robert Jackson's death. The case was re-argued on 13 October after Justice Harlan was sworn in as Jackson's replacement. With three dissents, the Court ruled in Toth's favor on 7 November.
The Court concerned itself with Bang Soon Kil's murder only as a matter of fact and its chronology relative to the date of Toth's discharge. The Court wasmore concerned with the manner in which the military justice code assumed powers normally reserved, in civilian life, for the judiciary branch of government, not Congress, which had signed the military rules into law.
The Court found that Toth's relationship with the military was completely over at the time of his arrest. The majority could find nothing in the Constitution giving the military jurisdiction over civilians, despite the government'scontention that Article 1 gave the military the right to regulate itself. The Court determined that such rules only applied to persons still actually inmilitary service.
In his opinion, written for the majority, Justice Black noted that traditional constitutional safeguards like the right to trial by jury and independent appellate judges did not exist in the military justice system. Because Toth, as a civilian, was entitled to such protections, he could not be properly tried by the military. Justice Black also noted that this situation was not confined to the Toth case. To allow this prosecution to go forward would place millions of other veterans within the reach of military courts after their return to civilian life. The Court was, however, amenable to the idea that Congress could give federal courts the power to pursue criminal accusations againstex-service personnel who had returned to civilian life.
Justices Reed, Burton, and Minton disagreed with the majority position. In anopinion written by Justice Reed, the dissenters felt that military courts were capable of holding fair trials, despite differences from the civilian justice system. Making disciplinary rules was entirely within Congress's power toregulate the armed forces, agreed the dissenters, who felt that the Court should not interfere. Justice Minton added that he did not consider Toth to bea full-fledged civilian at the time of his arrest, since Congress, through the military code, retained jurisdiction over Toth for a crime committed whilehe was still on active duty.
No one was ever seriously punished for the murder of Bang Soon Kil. Air ForceSecretary Harold E. Talbott reduced the sentences of the two men convicted of the crime. George Schreiber, who had ordered the killing, was dismissed from the service after serving 20 months of his five-year sentence. Thomas Kinder, who had pulled the trigger, was allowed to return to active Air Force dutyafter Secretary Talbot suspended his dishonorable discharge. Robert Toth, who insisted he had not been present when the killing took place, was not tried, as a result of the Supreme Court's decision.