Hirota v. MacArthur

Hirota v. MacArthur
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 16–17, 1948 Decided December 20, 1948
Full case name	Koki Hirota v. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, et al.
Citations	338 U.S. 197 (more) 69 S.Ct. 197; 93 L.Ed. 1902
Holding
The courts of the United States have no power or authority to review, to affirm, set aside or annul the judgments and sentences imposed on these petitioners and for this reason the motions for leave to file petitions for writs of habeas corpus are denied.
Court membership
Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas Frank Murphy · Robert H. Jackson Wiley B. Rutledge · Harold H. Burton
Case opinions
Per curiam.
Concurrence	Douglas
Dissent	Murphy
Jackson, Rutledge took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Hirota v. MacArthur, 338 U.S. 197 (1948), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that “the courts of the United States have no power or authority to review, to affirm, set aside or annul the judgments and sentences imposed on these petitioners [by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East] and for this reason the motions for leave to file petitions for writs of habeas corpus are denied”.

The appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was made following the death sentence against Koki Hirota and six other Japanese leaders tried for war crimes.

Legacy

In March 2008, the U.S. government cited Hirota v. MacArthur as "directly applicable" in Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674 (2008), in which it argued before the Supreme Court that U.S. federal courts lacked jurisdiction over two U.S. citizens being held by the military in Iraq and thus could not review their petitions for habeas corpus.

See also

• Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004)
• Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)
• Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674 (2008)

Further reading

• Aziz Huq, "The Hirota Gambit" NYU Annual Survey of American Law, 63 (2007) pp. 63-97
• Stephen I. Vladeck, "Deconstructing Hirota: Habeas Corpus, Citizenship, and Article III" Georgetown Law Journal, 95 (2007) pp. 1497-1554