Today in Supreme Court History: July 31

Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (decided July 31, 1942): allows Nazi saboteurs to argue their habeas petition before the Court, but upholds Presidential order that they be tried by a special military tribunal; admits that all federal courts are functioning normally but defers to Presidential authority in time of “grave public danger” and holds that the tribunal had power to try anyone regardless of citizenship or military status (eight Germans were deposited by submarines off Florida and Long Island with cash and explosives; it was known that the Hitler regime was training saboteurs but J. Edgar Hoover was inept at finding them, preferring to order dragnets on immigrant populations; the plot came to the FBI’s attention only because the leader, a former U.S. Army soldier, decided to turn them in before anything happened; he was one of the two who was not subsequently executed, but was deported to Germany in 1948 and tried for the rest of his life to get back into the United States)