Constitution and are subject to review in federal court. State officials do have the power to declare martial law, but their actions under the declaration must abide by the U.S. none of the experts interviewed by the Miami Herald envisioned a scenario in which the United States, which currently provides Guyana with military expertise, would. ![]() Congress might be able to authorize a presidential declaration of martial law, but this has not been conclusively decided. It concludes that under current law, the president lacks any authority to declare martial law. To do so, it draws on recent legal scholarship, the few rules that can be gleaned from Supreme Court precedent, and general principles of constitutional law. This report aims to clear up the confusion that surrounds martial law. The Supreme Court has addressed it on only a handful of occasions, and the Court’s reasoning in these decisions is inconsistent and vague. The precedents are also old: the most recent one - in which the Court overturned Harry White’s conviction - was decided almost 75 years ago. The Constitution does not mention martial law, and no act of Congress defines it. history. Yet the concept has never been well understood. Indeed, federal and state officials have declared martial law at least 68 times over the course of U.S. Instead, just five days after being arrested, White was tried without a jury, convicted, and sentenced to five years in prison.Īs White’s story illustrates, martial law - a term that generally refers to the displacement of civilian authorities by the military - can be and has been employed in the United States. ![]() But Major Murrell, the presiding military officer, rejected these motions. His attorney objected to the court’s jurisdiction, requested a jury trial, and asked for time to prepare a defense. White was brought before a military provost court. The army controlled every aspect of life in the islands, from criminal justice to parking zones and curbside trash removal. The rules governing everyday life were set not by an elected legislature but by the military governor. It had been under martial law since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Its courts were closed and replaced with military tribunals. Even his alleged crime - embezzlement of funds from a client - was a violation of civilian, not military, law.īut nothing about Hawaii was normal in 1942. He was a stockbroker, not a soldier, and neither he nor his business had any connection with the armed forces. military would not have been involved in his case. manual for courts-martial has been recently amended to include civilians False.On August 20, 1942, military police in Honolulu, Hawaii, arrested a man named Harry White. forces in Iraq when he stabbed another contractor. military court convicted a Canadian-Iraqi civilian contractor who was working as a translator for U.S. Code Title 10 the categories of people who are subject to military law.Ĭrucially, one category is described as "in time of declared war or a contingency operation, persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field." That means civilian contractors working with a branch of service during this specified period can be charged. The Uniform Code of Military Justice specifies in U.S. Some civilians are already subject to courts-martial but in very limited circumstances. "It cannot contradict the code, it just interprets it and fleshes it out." ![]() "The manual is inferior to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is a statute and the statute does not permit (ordinary) civilians to be tried by courts-martial," said Brenner Fissell, a Villanova University law professor with expertise in military justice. government that makes and amends laws, has not changed the code since 2007. The manual is assembled by the executive branch and sets out how the Uniform Code for Military Justice, a law passed by Congress, is to be applied. But the 2023 manual for courts-martial has not been recently amended to include civilians, nor does it expand broadly military justice’s reach.
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