It is often associated with the Japanese exclusion cases (Hirabayashi v. United States, Korematsu v. United States and Ex parte Endo) because it involved wartime curtailment of fundamental civil liberties under the aegis of military authority,[1][better source needed] though in this case neither the plaintiff nor the nominal defendant were Japanese.

While Duke Kahanamoku was a military police officer during World War II, he arrested Lloyd C. Duncan, a civilian shipfitter on February 24, 1944, after Duncan's brawl with two armed Marine sentries at the yard.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Governor of Hawaii suspended the writ of habeas corpus and placed the territory under martial law.

However, civilian courts had restarted summoning jurors and witnesses and conducting criminal trials on the island.

Duncan appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that his trial by military tribunal was not authorized by the Hawaiian Organic Act.