| Litigants: | Johnson v. Eisentrager |
| Arguedate: | April 17 |
| Argueyear: | 1950 |
| Decidedate: | June 5 |
| Decideyear: | 1950 |
| Fullname: | Louis A. Johnson, Secretary of Defense, et al. v. Lothar Eisentrager, alias Ludwig Ehrhardt, et al. |
| Usvol: | 339 |
| Uspage: | 763 |
| Parallelcitations: | 70 S. Ct. 936; 94 L. Ed. 1255; 1950 U.S. LEXIS 1815 |
| Prior: | Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit |
| Holding: | US courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a US-administered prison in Germany. United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. |
| Majority: | Jackson |
| Joinmajority: | Vinson, Reed, Frankfurter, Clark, Minton |
| Dissent: | Black |
| Joindissent: | Douglas, Burton |
Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), was a major decision of the US Supreme Court, where it decided that US courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a US-administered prison in Germany. The prisoners had at no time been on American sovereign territory.[1] [2] [3]
This decision was weakened by the Court's ruling in Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky (1973), when the court found that the key to jurisdiction was whether the Court could process service to the custodians. Braden was relied on by the Court in Rasul v. Bush (2004), in which it held that it did have jurisdiction over the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp because it could reach their custodians, the policymakers and leaders of the Bush administration, who were responsible for their detention.
On May 8, 1945, the German High Command executed an act of unconditional surrender, expressly obligating all forces under German control at once to cease active hostilities and therefore ending the European Theater of World War II. The prisoners had been convicted in China by an American military commission of violating the laws of war, by engaging in, permitting, or ordering continued military activity against the United States after surrender of Germany and before surrender of Japan. They were transported to the American-occupied part of Germany and imprisoned there in the custody of the US Army. Claiming that their trial, conviction, and imprisonment violated Articles I and III, the Fifth Amendment, and other provisions of the US Constitution, laws of the United States, and provisions of the Geneva Conventions, they petitioned the District Court for the District of Columbia for a writ of habeas corpus directed to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, and several officers of the Army having directive power over their custodian.
The US government argued:
In their ruling, the Supreme Court justices noted (emphasis added and footnotes removed):
Eisentrager and his 20 codefendants were all released from prison early, later in 1950.