## Facts

- After World War II, Germany was administered through Allied occupation zones, with governance coordinated by the Allied Control Council.
- Control Council Law No. 10 authorized prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupation zones through military tribunals established by zone commanders.
- Friedrich Flick, a German industrialist, was tried by Military Tribunal IV in the U.S. occupation zone, convicted of war crimes, and sentenced.
- Flick was imprisoned in the American zone of occupied Germany under U.S. Army custody pursuant to the tribunal’s judgment.
- Flick filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the legality of his detention and the tribunal.
- The district court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction because Flick was confined outside the District of Columbia.
- Flick appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether a federal district court has habeas corpus jurisdiction when the petitioner is physically confined outside the court’s territorial jurisdiction, in occupied Germany.
2. Whether custody by U.S. military authorities, pursuant to an occupation-era military tribunal operating under inter-Allied authority, changes the territorial limits on federal habeas jurisdiction.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the habeas petition.
- The court held the district court lacked jurisdiction because Flick was confined outside the territorial jurisdiction of the District of Columbia.
- Relying on then-controlling Supreme Court precedent, the court concluded that the statutory requirement that the detainee be “within the district” barred jurisdiction even though U.S. officials controlled the detention.
- Because jurisdiction was absent, the court did not reach the merits of Flick’s attacks on the tribunal or his conviction.

## Legal Principles

- Federal district court habeas jurisdiction is territorially limited; the petitioner’s physical confinement must be within the issuing court’s territorial jurisdiction.
- The identity or federal character of the custodian does not by itself create habeas jurisdiction when the detention is outside the court’s territorial reach.
- Absent jurisdiction, federal courts cannot review substantive challenges to convictions or sentences imposed by occupation-era military tribunals holding prisoners abroad.

## Conclusion

The court held that a habeas petition filed in the District of Columbia could not proceed because the petitioner was imprisoned in occupied Germany, outside the court’s territorial jurisdiction, and the fact of U.S. military custody under an occupation tribunal did not remove that jurisdictional barrier.


Flick v. Johnson, 174 F.2d 983 (D.C. Cir. 1949)