Ex parte Milligan

Date:1866

Annotation: Supreme Court ruling on the power of the federal government to institute martial law.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln, concerned that Southern sympathizers might weaken the war effort in the North, instituted commands that placed civilian areas under military control and imposed martial law. These orders allowed the military to arrest and try those civilians suspected of being disloyal.

However, under the Constitution, habeas corpus guarantees that all citizens have the right to trial and to have the court of law determine if a person was imprisoned lawfully; thus, preventing government from acting illegally.

In this case, Lambdin Milligan and four other men in Indiana were arrested and sentenced to death for conspiring to steal weapons and free Confederate prisoners of war. Milligan appealed the case, pleading habeas corpus as a Constitutional right. The Supreme Court decided that President Lincoln had overstepped the boundaries of the law when he imposed martial law. Milligan was released from prison.

Document: U.S. Supreme Court

Ex Parte Milligan 71 U.S. 2 (4 Wall.) (1866)

Mr. Justice Davis delivered the opinion of the court.

On the 10th day of May, 1865, Lambdin P. Milligan presented a petition to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana to be discharged from an alleged unlawful imprisonment. The case made by the petition is this: Milligan is a citizen of the United States; has lived for twenty years in Indiana, and, at the time of the grievances complained of, was not, and never had been, in the military or naval service of the United States. On the 5th day of October, 1864, while at home, he was arrested by order of General Alvin P. Hovey, commanding the military district of Indiana, and has ever since been kept in close confinement.

On the 21st day of October, 1864, he was brought before a military commission, convened at Indianapolis by order of General Hovey, tried on certain charges and specifications, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, and the sentence ordered to be executed on Friday, the 19th day of May, 1865.

On the 2d day of January, 1865, after the proceedings of the military commission were at an end, the Circuit Court of the United States for Indiana met at Indianapolis and impaneled a grand jury, who were charged to inquire whether the laws of the United States had been violated, and, if so, to make presentments. The court adjourned on the 27th day of January, having, prior thereto, discharged from further service the grand jury, who did not find any bill of indictment or make any presentment against Milligan for any offence whatever, and, in fact, since his imprisonment, no bill of indictment has been found or presentment made against him by any grand jury of the United States.

Milligan insists that said military commission had no jurisdiction to try him upon the charges preferred, or upon any charges whatever, because he was a citizen of the United States and the State of Indiana, and had not been, since the commencement of the late Rebellion, a resident of any of the States whose citizens were arrayed against the government, and that the right of trial by jury was guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States.

The prayer of the petition was that, under the act of Congress approved March 3, 1863, entitled, “An act relating to habeas corpus and regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases,” he may be brought before the court and either turned over to the proper civil tribunal to be proceeded against according to the law of the land or discharged from custody altogether.

With the petition were filed the order for the commission, the charges and specifications, the findings of the court, with the order of the War Department reciting that the sentence was approved by the President of the United States, and directing that it be carried into execution without delay. The petition was presented and filed in open court by the counsel for Milligan; at the same time, the District Attorney of the United States for Indiana appeared and, by the agreement of counsel, the application was submitted to the court. The opinions of the judges of the Circuit Court were opposed on three questions, which are certified to the Supreme Court:

1st. “On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought a writ of habeas corpus to be issued?”

2d. “On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought the said Lambdin P. Milligan to be discharged from custody as in said petition prayed?”

3d. “Whether, upon the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, the military commission mentioned therein had jurisdiction legally to try and sentence said Milligan in manner and form as in said petition and exhibits is stated?”

The importance of the main question presented by this record cannot be overstated, for it involves the very framework of the government and the fundamental principles of American liberty.

During the late wicked Rebellion, the temper of the times did not allow that calmness in deliberation and discussion so necessary to a correct conclusion of a purely judicial question. Then, considerations of safety were mingled with the exercise of power, and feelings and interests prevailed which are happily terminated. Now that the public safety is assured, this question, as well as all others, can be discussed and decided without passion or the admixture of any element not required to form a legal judgment. We approach the investigation of this case fully sensible of the magnitude of the inquiry and the necessity of full and cautious deliberation.

But we are met with a preliminary objection. It is insisted that the Circuit Court of Indiana had no authority to certify these questions, and that we are without jurisdiction to hear and determine them.

The sixth section of the “Act to amend the judicial system of the United States,” approved April 29, 1802, declares that whenever any question shall occur before a Circuit Court upon which the opinions of the judges shall be opposed, the point upon which the disagreement shall happen shall, during the same term, upon the request of either party or their counsel, be stated under the direction of the judges and certified under the seal of the court to the Supreme Court at their next session to be held thereafter, and shall by the said court be finally decided, and the decision of the Supreme Court and their order in the premises shall be remitted to the Circuit Court and be there entered of record, and shall have effect according to the nature of the said judgment and order: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall prevent the cause from proceeding, if, in the opinion of the court, further proceedings can be had without prejudice to the merits. It is under this provision of law that a Circuit Court has authority to certify any question to the Supreme Court for adjudication. The inquiry, therefore, is, whether the case of Milligan is brought within its terms.

It was admitted at the bar that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction to entertain the application for the writ of habeas corpus and to hear and determine it, and it could not be denied, for the power is expressly given in the 14th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, as well as in the later act of 1863. Chief Justice Marshall, in Bollman’s case, construed this branch of the Judiciary Act to authorize the courts as well as the judges to issue the writ for the purpose of inquiring into the cause of the commitment, and this construction has never been departed from. But it is maintained with earnestness and ability that a certificate of division of opinion can occur only in a cause, and that the proceeding by a party moving for a writ of habeas corpus does not become a cause until after the writ has been issued and a return made.

Independently of the provisions of the act of Congress of March 3, 1863, relating to habeas corpus, on which the petitioner bases his claim for relief and which we will presently consider, can this position be sustained?

It is true that it is usual for a court, on application for a writ of habeas corpus, to issue the writ, and, on the return, to dispose of the case, but the court can elect to waive the issuing of the writ and consider whether, upon the facts presented in the petition, the prisoner, if brought before it, could be discharged. One of the very points on which the case of Tobias Watkins, reported in 3 Peters, turned was whether, if the writ was issued, the petitioner would be remanded upon the case which he had made.

The Chief Justice, in delivering the opinion of the court, said:

 

The cause of imprisonment is shown as fully by the petitioner as it could appear on the return of the writ; consequently, the writ ought not to be awarded if the court is satisfied that the prisoner would be remanded to prison.

The judges of the Circuit Court of Indiana were therefore warranted by an express decision of this court in refusing the writ if satisfied that the prisoner, on his own showing, was rightfully detained.

But, it is contended, if they differed about the lawfulness of the imprisonment, and could render no judgment, the prisoner is remediless, and cannot have the disputed question certified under the act of 1802. His remedy is complete by writ of error or appeal, if the court renders a final judgment refusing to discharge him; but if he should be so unfortunate as to be placed in the predicament of having the court divided on the question whether he should live or die, he is hopeless, and without remedy. He wishes the vital question settled not by a single judge at his chambers, but by the highest tribunal known to the Constitution, and yet the privilege is denied him because the Circuit Court consists of two judges, instead of one.

Such a result was not in the contemplation of the legislature of 1802, and the language used by it cannot be construed to mean any such thing. The clause under consideration was introduced to further the ends of justice by obtaining a speedy settlement of important questions where the judges might be opposed in opinion.

The act of 1802 so changed the judicial system that the Circuit Court, instead of three, was composed of two judges, and, without this provision or a kindred one, if the judges differed, the difference would remain, the question be unsettled, and justice denied. The decisions of this court upon the provisions of this section have been numerous. In United States v. Daniel, the court, in holding that a division of the judges on a motion for a new trial could not be certified, say: “That the question must be one which arises in a cause depending before the court relative to a proceeding belonging to the cause.” Testing Milligan’s case by this rule of law, is it not apparent that it is rightfully here, and that we are compelled to answer the questions on which the judges below were opposed in opinion? If, in the sense of the law, the proceeding for the writ of habeas corpus was the “cause” of the party applying for it, then it is evident that the “cause” was pending before the court, and that the questions certified arose out of it, belonged to it, and were matters of right, and not of discretion.

But it is argued that the proceeding does not ripen into a cause until there are two parties to it.

This we deny. It was the cause of Milligan when the petition was presented to the Circuit Court. It would have been the cause of both parties if the court had issued the writ and brought those who held Milligan in custody before it. Webster defines the word “cause” thus: “A suit or action in court; any legal process which a party institutes to obtain his demand, or by which he seeks his right, or supposed right” — and he says, “this is a legal, scriptural, and popular use of the word, coinciding nearly with case, from cado, and action, from ago, to urge and drive.”

In any legal sense, action, suit, and cause, are convertible terms. Milligan supposed he had a right to test the validity of his trial and sentence, and the proceeding which he set in operation for that purpose was his “cause” or “suit.” It was the only one by which he could recover his liberty. He was powerless to do more; he could neither instruct the judges nor control their action, and should not suffer, because, without fault of his, they were unable to render a judgment. But the true meaning to the term “suit” has been given by this court. One of the questions in Weston v. City Council of Charleston, was whether a writ of prohibition was a suit, and Chief Justice Marshall says:

 

The term is certainly a comprehensive one, and is understood to apply to any proceeding in a court of justice by which an individual pursues that remedy which the law affords him.

Certainly Milligan pursued the only remedy which the law afforded him.

Again, in Cohens v. Virginia, he says: “In law language, a suit is the prosecution of some demand in a court of justice.” Also, “To commence a suit is to demand something by the institution of process in a court of justice, and to prosecute the suit is to continue that demand.”

When Milligan demanded his release by the proceeding relating to habeas corpus, he commenced a suit, and he has since prosecuted it in all the ways known to the law. One of the questions in Holmes v. Jennison, et al., was whether, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, a proceeding for a writ of habeas corpus was a “suit.” Chief Justice Taney held that, if a party is unlawfully imprisoned, the writ of habeas corpus is his appropriate legal remedy. It is his suit in court to recover his liberty.

There was much diversity of opinion on another ground of jurisdiction, but that, in the sense of the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, the proceeding by habeas corpus was a suit was not controverted by any except Baldwin, Justice, and he thought that “suit” and “cause,” as used in the section, mean the same thing.

The court does not say that a return must be made and the parties appear and begin to try the case before it is a suit. When the petition is filed and the writ prayed for, it is a suit — the suit of the party making the application. If it is a suit under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act when the proceedings are begun, it is, by all the analogies of the law, equally a suit under the 6th section of the act of 1802.

But it is argued that there must be two parties to the suit, because the point is to be stated upon the request of “either party or their counsel.”

Such a literal and technical construction would defeat the very purpose the legislature had in view, which was to enable any party to bring the case here when the point in controversy was a matter of right, and not of discretion, and the words “either party,” in order to prevent a failure of justice, must be construed as words of enlargement, and not of restriction. Although this case is here ex parte, it was not considered by the court below without notice having been given to the party supposed to have an interest in the detention of the prisoner. The statements of the record show that this is not only a fair, but conclusive, inference. When the counsel for Milligan presented to the court the petition for the writ of habeas corpus, Mr. Hanna, the District Attorney for Indiana, also appeared, and, by agreement, the application was submitted to the court, who took the case under advisement, and on the next day announced their inability to agree, and made the certificate. It is clear that Mr. Hanna did not represent the petitioner, and why is his appearance entered? It admits of no other solution than this — that he was informed of the application, and appeared on behalf of the government to contest it. The government was the prosecutor of Milligan, who claimed that his imprisonment was illegal and sought, in the only way he could, to recover his liberty. The case was a grave one, and the court unquestionably directed that the law officer of the government should be informed of it. He very properly appeared, and, as the facts were uncontroverted and the difficulty was in the application of the law, there was no useful purpose to be obtained in issuing the writ. The cause was therefore submitted to the court for their consideration and determination.

But Milligan claimed his discharge from custody by virtue of the act of Congress “relating to habeas corpus, and regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases,” approved March 3, 1863. Did that act confer jurisdiction on the Circuit Court of Indiana to hear this case?

In interpreting a law, the motives which must have operated with the legislature in passing it are proper to be considered. This law was passed in a time of great national peril, when our heritage of free government was in danger. An armed rebellion against the national authority, of greater proportions than history affords an example of, was raging, and the public safety required that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus should be suspended. The President had practically suspended it, and detained suspected persons in custody without trial, but his authority to do this was questioned. It was claimed that Congress alone could exercise this power, and that the legislature, and not the President, should judge of the political considerations on which the right to suspend it rested. The privilege of this great writ had never before been withheld from the citizen, and, as the exigence of the times demanded immediate action, it was of the highest importance that the lawfulness of the suspension should be fully established. It was under these circumstances, which were such as to arrest the attention of the country, that this law was passed. The President was authorized by it to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus whenever, in his judgment, the public safety required, and he did, by proclamation, bearing date the 15th of September, 1863, reciting, among other things, the authority of this statute, suspend it. The suspension of the writ does not authorize the arrest of anyone, but simply denies to one arrested the privilege of this writ in order to obtain his liberty.

It is proper therefore to inquire under what circumstances the courts could rightfully refuse to grant this writ, and when the citizen was at liberty to invoke its aid.

The second and third sections of the law are explicit on these points. The language used is plain and direct, and the meaning of the Congress cannot be mistaken. The public safety demanded, if the President thought proper to arrest a suspected person, that he should not be required to give the cause of his detention on return to a writ of habeas corpus. But it was not contemplated that such person should be detained in custody beyond a certain fixed period unless certain judicial proceedings, known to the common law, were commenced against him. The Secretaries of State and War were directed to furnish to the judges of the courts of the United States a list of the names of all parties, not prisoners of war, resident in their respective jurisdictions, who then were or afterwards should be held in custody by the authority of the President, and who were citizens of states in which the administration of the laws in the Federal tribunals was unimpaired. After the list was furnished, if a grand jury of the district convened and adjourned, and did not indict or present one of the persons thus named, he was entitled to his discharge, and it was the duty of the judge of the court to order him brought before him to be discharged if he desired it. The refusal or omission to furnish the list could not operate to the injury of anyone who was not indicted or presented by the grand jury, for, if twenty days had elapsed from the time of his arrest and the termination of the session of the grand jury, he was equally entitled to his discharge as if the list were furnished, and any credible person, on petition verified by affidavit, could obtain the judge’s order for that purpose.

Milligan, in his application to be released from imprisonment, averred the existence of every fact necessary under the terms of this law to give the Circuit Court of Indiana jurisdiction. If he was detained in custody by the order of the President otherwise than as a prisoner of war, if he was a citizen of Indiana and had never been in the military or naval service, and the grand jury of the district had met, after he had been arrested, for a period of twenty days, and adjourned without taking any proceedings against him, then the court had the right to entertain his petition and determine the lawfulness of his imprisonment. Because the word “court” is not found in the body of the second section, it was argued at the bar that the application should have been made to a judge of the court, and not to the court itself; but this is not so, for power is expressly conferred in the last proviso of the section on the court equally with a judge of it to discharge from imprisonment. It was the manifest design of Congress to secure a certain remedy by which anyone deprived of liberty could obtain it if there was a judicial failure to find cause of offence against him. Courts are not, always in session, and can adjourn on the discharge of the grand jury, and before those who are in confinement could take proper steps to procure their liberation. To provide for this contingency, authority was given to the judges out of court to grant relief to any party who could show that, under the law, he should be no longer restrained of his liberty.

It was insisted that Milligan’s case was defective because it did not state that the list was furnished to the judges, and therefore it was impossible to say under which section of the act it was presented.

It is not easy to see how this omission could affect the question of jurisdiction. Milligan could not know that the list was furnished, unless the judges volunteered to tell him, for the law did not require that any record should be made of it or anybody but the judges informed of it. Why aver the fact when the truth of the matter was apparent to the court without an averment? How can Milligan be harmed by the absence of the averment when he states that he was under arrest for more than sixty days before the court and grand jury, which should have considered his case, met at Indianapolis? It is apparent therefore that, under the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863, the Circuit Court of Indiana had complete jurisdiction to adjudicate upon this case, and, if the judges could not agree on questions vital to the progress of the cause, they had the authority (as we have shown in a previous part of this opinion), and it was their duty, to certify those questions of disagreement to this court for final decision. It was argued that a final decision on the questions presented ought not to be made, because the parties who were directly concerned in the arrest and detention of Milligan were not before the court, and their rights might be prejudiced by the answer which should be given to those questions. But this court cannot know what return will be made to the writ of habeas corpus when issued, and it is very clear that no one is concluded upon any question that may be raised to that return. In the sense of the law of 1802 which authorized a certificate of division, a final decision means final upon the points certified, final upon the court below, so that it is stopped from any adverse ruling in all the subsequent proceedings of the cause.

But it is said that this case is ended, as the presumption is that Milligan was hanged in pursuance of the order of the President.

Although we have no judicial information on the subject, yet the inference is that he is alive, for otherwise learned counsel would not appear for him and urge this court to decide his case. It can never be, in this country of written constitution and laws, with a judicial department to interpret them, that any chief magistrate would be so far forgetful of his duty as to order the execution of a man who denied the jurisdiction that tried and convicted him after his case was before Federal judges with power to decide it, who, being unable to agree on the grave questions involved, had, according to known law, sent it to the Supreme Court of the United States for decision. But even the suggestion is injurious to the Executive, and we dismiss it from further consideration. There is therefore nothing to hinder this court from an investigation of the merits of this controversy.

The controlling question in the case is this: upon the facts stated in Milligan’s petition and the exhibits filed, had the military commission mentioned in it jurisdiction legally to try and sentence him? Milligan, not a resident of one of the rebellious states or a prisoner of war, but a citizen of Indiana for twenty years past and never in the military or naval service, is, while at his home, arrested by the military power of the United States, imprisoned, and, on certain criminal charges preferred against him, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged by a military commission, organized under the direction of the military commander of the military district of Indiana. Had this tribunal the legal power and authority to try and punish this man?

No graver question was ever considered by this court, nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole people, for it is the birthright of every American citizen when charged with crime to be tried and punished according to law. The power of punishment is alone through the means which the laws have provided for that purpose, and, if they are ineffectual, there is immunity from punishment, no matter how great an offender the individual may be or how much his crimes may have shocked the sense of justice of the country or endangered its safety. By the protection of the law, human rights are secured; withdraw that protection and they are at the mercy of wicked rulers or the clamor of an excited people. If there was law to justify this military trial, it is not our province to interfere; if there was not, it is our duty to declare the nullity of the whole proceedings. The decision of this question does not depend on argument or judicial precedents, numerous and highly illustrative as they are. These precedents inform us of the extent of the struggle to preserve liberty and to relieve those in civil life from military trials. The founders of our government were familiar with the history of that struggle, and secured in a written constitution every right which the people had wrested from power during a contest of ages. By that Constitution and the laws authorized by it, this question must be determined. The provisions of that instrument on the administration of criminal justice are too plain and direct to leave room for misconstruction or doubt of their true meaning. Those applicable to this case are found in that clause of the original Constitution which says “That the trial of all crimes, except in case of impeachment, shall be by jury,” and in the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles of the amendments. The fourth proclaims the right to be secure in person and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, and directs that a judicial warrant shall not issue “without proof of probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.” The fifth declares that no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on presentment by a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

And the sixth guarantees the right of trial by jury, in such manner and with such regulations that, with upright judges, impartial juries, and an able bar, the innocent will be saved and the guilty punished. It is in these words:

 

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

These securities for personal liberty thus embodied were such as wisdom and experience had demonstrated to be necessary for the protection of those accused of crime. And so strong was the sense of the country of their importance, and so jealous were the people that these rights, highly prized, might be denied them by implication, that, when the original Constitution was proposed for adoption, it encountered severe opposition, and, but for the belief that it would be so amended as to embrace them, it would never have been ratified.

Time has proven the discernment of our ancestors, for even these provisions, expressed in such plain English words that it would seem the ingenuity of man could not evade them, are now, after the lapse of more than seventy years, sought to be avoided. Those great and good men foresaw that troublous times would arise when rulers and people would become restive under restraint, and seek by sharp and decisive measures to accomplish ends deemed just and proper, and that the principles of constitutional liberty would be in peril unless established by irrepealable law. The history of the world had taught them that what was done in the past might be attempted in the future. The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false, for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence, as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to throw off its just authority.

Have any of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution been violated in the case of Milligan?, and, if so, what are they?

Every trial involves the exercise of judicial power, and from what source did the military commission that tried him derive their authority? Certainly no part of judicial power of the country was conferred on them, because the Constitution expressly vests it “in one supreme court and such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” and it is not pretended that the commission was a court ordained and established by Congress. They cannot justify on the mandate of the President, because he is controlled by law, and has his appropriate sphere of duty, which is to execute, not to make, the laws, and there is “no unwritten criminal code to which resort can be had as a source of jurisdiction.”

But it is said that the jurisdiction is complete under the “laws and usages of war.”

It can serve no useful purpose to inquire what those laws and usages are, whence they originated, where found, and on whom they operate; they can never be applied to citizens in states which have upheld the authority of the government, and where the courts are open and their process unobstructed. This court has judicial knowledge that, in Indiana, the Federal authority was always unopposed, and its courts always open to hear criminal accusations and redress grievances, and no usage of war could sanction a military trial there for any offence whatever of a citizen in civil life in nowise connected with the military service. Congress could grant no such power; and, to the honor of our national legislature be it said, it has never been provoked by the state of the country even to attempt its exercise. One of the plainest constitutional provisions was therefore infringed when Milligan was tried by a court not ordained and established by Congress and not composed of judges appointed during good behavior.

Why was he not delivered to the Circuit Court of Indiana to be proceeded against according to law? No reason of necessity could be urged against it, because Congress had declared penalties against the offences charged, provided for their punishment, and directed that court to hear and determine them. And soon after this military tribunal was ended, the Circuit Court met, peacefully transacted its business, and adjourned.