Roberson v. United States

MADDEN, Judge

(dissenting).

My reason for not agreeing with the opinion of the court is that I think that the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois did not have jurisdiction to make the “Certificate of Innocence” upon which the plaintiff’s right to recover depends.

Section 2513 of Title 28 of the United States Code requires, so far as pertinent to this case, that one who sues for damages for unjust imprisonment prove that his conviction has been reversed or set aside on the ground that he was not guilty of the offense for which he was convicted, or that on a new trial or a rehearing he was found not guilty, and that the absence of guilt be shown by the record or certificate of the court setting aside or reversing the conviction.

The findings of this court as well as the narrative of the opinion show that the plaintiff did all the physical acts of which he was charged and convicted by the Navy court martial. The District Court, in the habeas corpus proceeding, had no jurisdiction to review the correctness of the court martial’s decision as to the facts of the plaintiff’s conduct, and, so far as appears, the court did not undertake any such review. The court merely held that the court martial had no jurisdiction to try the plaintiff, since the plaintiff had been discharged from the Navy before the acts for which he was tried were committed.

I think that Section 2513 contemplates that the court in which the conviction, the nullification of which is to give rise to a claim for damages, is a court having jurisdiction over the merits of the conviction. The fact that one has been tried and convicted in a court not having venue of the offense, and has for that reason had his conviction reversed, would not appeal to the sense of fairness which Congress expressed in Section 2513. Congress was interested in the question of whether the convicted person had done the things of which he was convicted, and not in the question of whether he had, erroneously, been tried in the wrong tribunal.

This case is, of course, different from the case of the ex-soldier who has committed murder or some other crime, has been convicted by a court martial, and has been freed from imprisonment on a writ of habeas corpus by a civil court on the ground that the court martial had no jurisdiction to try one who was no longer in the Army. In this case the conduct of which the plaintiff was convicted by the court martial may not have been crimes at all, if, as the District Court concluded in the habeas corpus proceeding, the plaintiff was no longer in the Navy. This difference was, no doubt, the reason why the District Court essayed to give the plaintiff a certificate of innocence. But I think that this difference did not have the effect of conferring jurisdiction upon the District *867 Court to make any decision whatever as to the factual or legal merits of the plaintiff’s conviction, when the only proceeding before the court concerned the jurisdiction of the court martial to try the plaintiff.

In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1, 8 , 66 S.Ct. 340, 344 , 90 L.Ed. 499 , the Supreme Court said:

“We also emphasized in Ex parte Quirin [ 317 U.S. 1 , 63 S.Ct. 1 , 2, 87 L.Ed. 3 ], as we do here, that on application for habeas corpus we are not concerned with the guilt or innocence of the petitioners. We consider here only the lawful power of the commission to try the petitioner for the offense charged. In the present cases it must be recognized throughout that the military tribunals which Congress has sanctioned by the Articles of War are not courts whose rulings and judgments are made subject to review by this Court. See Ex parte Vallandigham, 1 Wall. 243 , 17 L.Ed. 589 ; In re Vidal, 179 U.S. 126 , 21 S.Ct. 48 , 45 L.Ed. 118 ; cf. Ex parte Quirin, supra, 317 U.S. 39 , 63 S.Ct. 16 , 87 L.Ed. 3 . They are tribunals whose determinations are reviewable by the military authorities either as provided in the military orders constituting such tribunals or as provided by the Articles of War. Congress conferred on the courts no power to review their determinations save only as it has granted judicial power ‘to grant writs of habeas corpus for the purpose of an inquiry into the cause of restraint of liberty.’ 28 U.S.C. §§ 451 , 452, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 451 , 452. The courts may inquire whether the detention complained of is within the authority of those detaining the petitioner. If the military tribunals have lawful authority to hear, decide and condemn, their action is not subject to judicial review merely because they have made a wrong decision on disputed facts. Correction of their errors of decision is not for the courts but for the military authorities which are alone authorized to review their decisions. See Dynes v. Hoover, 20 How. 65, 81 , 15 L.Ed. 838 ; Runkle v. United States, 122 U.S. 543, 555-556 , 7 S.Ct. 1141, 1145, 1146 , 30 L.Ed. 1167 ; Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U.S. 365 , 22 S.Ct. 181 , 46 L.Ed. 236 ; Collins v. McDonald, 258 U.S. 416 , 42 S.Ct. 326 , 66 L.Ed. 692 . Cf. Matter of Moran, 203 U.S. 96, 105 , 27 S.Ct. 25, 36 , 51 L.Ed. 105 .”

I have no quarrel with the decision in McLean v. United States, D.C., 73 F. Supp. 775 . There the certificate of innocence was alleged to have been issued by the Judge Advocate General of the Navy, the official having jurisdiction to review the factual and legal merits of the conviction. I would not find it necessary to decide whether the unjust conviction statute covers court martial convictions. But if I did so decide, I would further decide that the necessary certificate of innocence must issue from a tribunal having jurisdiction to review the conviction on its merits.

Concerning the moralities of the case, I think that the plaintiff must have been aware, when he left the Navy barracks, that, in the view of the Navy, his premature discharge and his simultaneous reenlistment were both part of the same transaction, and that, the reenlistment having been found invalid, the discharge was likewise ineffective. That must have been the deliberate view of the Navy when it instituted and carried through the court martial proceedings. The conduct of the plaintiff in deciding this question for himself and abruptly going home was, it seems to me, reckless in the extreme, and a practical invitation to the Navy to prosecute him. This reckless conduct antedated his trial and imprisonment by the Navy, to which this court attributes all the plaintiff’s later difficulties. It seems to me that the plaintiff’s later erratic conduct, which directly brought on his difficulties and damages, was of the same sort as and no more reckless than what he did before the sup *868 posed cause of his later conduct occurred. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is an unsafe doctrine even when the sequence of events makes it possible to apply it. But when substantially the same thing has occurred before, as well as after, the supposed cause of the later event, the doctrine has no logical application at all.