CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS

Coverage

Criminal prosecutions in the District of Columbia 1 and in incorporated territories 2 must conform to this Amendment, but those in the unincorporated territories need not do so. 3 In upholding a trial before a United States consul of a United States citizen for a crime committed within the jurisdiction of a foreign nation, the Court specifically held that this Amendment reached only citizens and others within the United States or who were brought to the United States for trial for alleged offenses committed elsewhere, and not to citizens residing or temporarily sojourning abroad. 4 It is clear that this holding no longer is supportable after Reid v. Covert, 5 but it is not clear what the constitutional rule is. All of the rights guaranteed in this Amendment are so fundamental that they have been made applicable against state abridgment by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 6  

Footnotes

[Footnote 1] Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540 (1888).  

[Footnote 2] Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879). See also Lovato v. New Mexico, 242 U.S. 199 (1916).

[Footnote 3] Balzac v. Puerto Rico, 258 U.S. 298, 304 -05 (1922); Dorr v. United States, 195 U.S. 138 (1904). These holdings are, of course, merely one element of the doctrine of the Insular Cases, De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 1 (1901); and Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901), concerned with the ''Constitution following the flag.'' Supra, pp.324- 25. Cf. Rassmussen v. United States, 197 U.S. 516 (1905).

[Footnote 4] In re Ross, 140 U.S. 453 (1891).

[Footnote 5]  354 U.S. 1 (1957) (holding that civilian dependents of members of the Armed Forces overseas could not constitutionally be tried by court-martial in time of peace for capital offenses committed abroad). Four Justices, Black, Douglas, Brennan, and Chief Justice Warren, disapproved Ross as ''resting . . . on a fundamental misconception'' that the Constitution did not limit the actions of the United States Government wherever it acted, id. at 5-6, 10-12, and evinced some doubt with regard to the Insular Cases as well. Id. at 12- 14. Justices Frankfurter and Harlan, concurring, would not accept these strictures, but were content to limit Ross to its particular factual situation and to distinguish the Insular Cases. Id. at 41, 65. Cf. Middendorf v. Henry, 425 U.S. 25, 33 -42 (1976) (declining to decide whether there is a right to counsel in a court-martial, but ruling that the summary court-martial involved in the case was not a ''criminal prosecution'' within the meaning of the Amendment).

[Footnote 6]    Citation is made in the sections dealing with each provision.

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