Ex parte Quirin

Ex parte Quirin
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued July 29–30, 1942 Decided July 31, 1942
Full case name	Ex parte Richard Quirin; Ex parte Herbert Hans Haupt; Ex parte Edward John Kerling; Ex parte Ernest Peter Burger; Ex parte Heinrich Harm Heinck; Ex parte Werner Thiel; Ex parte Hermann Otto Neubauer; United States ex rel. Quirin v. Cox, Brig. Gen., U.S.A., Provost Marshal of the Military District of Washington, and 6 other cases.
Citations	317 U.S. 1 (more) 63 S. Ct. 2; 87 L. Ed. 3; 1942 U.S. LEXIS 1119
Case history
Prior	Motion for leave to file petition for writs of habeas corpus denied, 47 F. Supp. 431 (D.D.C. 1942)
Holding
Jurisdiction of a United States military tribunal over the trial of several German saboteurs in the United States was constitutional.
Court membership
Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone Associate Justices Owen Roberts · Hugo Black Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy James F. Byrnes · Robert H. Jackson
Case opinion
Per curiam
Majority	Stone
Murphy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const.

Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), was a case of the United States Supreme Court that during World War II upheld the jurisdiction of a United States military tribunal over the trial of eight German saboteurs, in the United States.^[1] Quirin has been cited as a precedent for the trial by military commission of unlawful combatants.

It was argued July 29 and 30, and decided July 31, with an extended opinion filed October 29, 1942.

This decision states in part that:

... the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.