Reid v. Covert

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Reid v. Covert

Argued May 3, 1956
Reargued February 27, 1957
Decided June 10, 1957

Full case name:	Reid, Superintendent, District of Columbia Jail v. Clarice Covert

Citations:	354 U.S. 1; 77 S. Ct. 1222; 1 L. Ed. 2d 1148; 1957 U.S. LEXIS 729

Holding

The Constitution supersedes all treaties ratified by the United States Senate. The military may not try the civilian wife of a soldier under military jurisdiction.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Harold Hitz Burton, Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Jr., Charles Evans Whittaker

Case opinions

Plurality by: Black
Joined by: Warren, Douglas, Brennan
Concurrence by: Frankfurter
Concurrence by: Harlan
Dissent by: Clark
Joined by: Burton
Whittaker took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Laws applied

U.S. Const. Art. VI

Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), is a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution supersedes international treaties ratified by the United States Senate. According to the decision, "this Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty," although the case itself was with regard to an executive agreement and the treaty has never been ruled unconstitutional.

The case involved Mrs. Covert, who had been convicted by a military tribunal of murdering her husband. At the time of Mrs. Covert's alleged offense, an executive agreement was in effect between the United States and United Kingdom which permitted United States' military courts to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over offenses committed in Great Britain by American servicemen or their dependents. The Court found that "no agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution." The Court's core holding of the case is that civilian wives of soldiers may not be tried under military jurisdiction, because the Fifth Amendment's grant for military jurisdiction, i.e. "except in cases arising in the land and naval forces" cannot sweep in the jury-trial requirement reflected in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

Justice Harlan's concurrence was premised on the idea that the Constitution applies overseas, unless its application was "impracticable and anomalous." In Reid, Harlan concurred with the opinion because he found that providing Fifth Amendment rights extra-territorially was in fact, impracticable and anomalous.

The case made Ms. Covert's lawyer, Frederick Bernays Wiener, famous in legal history; the case represents the only time a lawyer lost in the Supreme Court of the United States but prevailed on rehearing.