Toth v. Quarles 1955
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 1046-1050 |
Page 1046
Petitioner: Audrey M. Toth
Respondent: Donald A. Quarles, Secretary of the U.S. Air Force
Petitioner's Claim: That Congress violated the Constitution by allowing the military to hold court-martials for civilians who used to be military personnel.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: William A. Kehoe, Jr.
Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Simon E. Sobeloff, U.S. Solicitor General
Justices for the Court: Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), Tom C. Clark, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, John Marshall Harlan II, Earl Warren
Justices Dissenting: Harold Burton, Sherman Minton, Stanley Forman Reed
Date of Decision: November 7, 1955
Decision: The Supreme Court ordered the Air Force to release Robert Toth from custody.
Significance: With Toth, the Court said the military does not have power to try civilians for military crimes.
Robert Toth was an enlisted airman in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. On 27 September 1952, Toth was on guard duty with Airman Thomas Kinder at an airbase in South Korea. That day the airmen found a Korean civilian, Bang Soon Kil, who appeared to be drunk.
Page 1047
The airmen took Bang Soon into custody and drove him to base headquarters in a jeep.
On the way to headquarters, Bang Soon grabbed at Toth's arm. Toth allegedly stopped the jeep and pistol-whipped Bang Soon. When the airmen arrived at headquarters, their commanding officer, Lieutenant George Schreiber, ordered them to take Bang Soon away and shoot him.
By the time military authorities discovered the murder, Toth had been honorably discharged from service. Schreiber and Kinder, however, were still in the Air Force. Both men faced a court-martial, which is a military trial for violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The court-martial found Schreiber guilty and sentenced him to life in prison, but the Air Force reduced the sentence to five years in prison, forfeiture of pay, and a dishonorable discharge. The court-martial also gave Kinder a life sentence, but the Air Force reduced it to two years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.
After being honorably discharged from the Air Force, Toth returned to his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and got a job in a steel plant. He had been there five months when Air Force police arrived at the plant to arrest him for Bang Soon's...
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