Military tribunals also, generally speaking, do not assert jurisdiction over people who are acknowledged to be civilians who are alleged to have broken civil or criminal laws.
General George Washington used military tribunals during the American Revolution, including the prosecution of British Major John André, who was sentenced to death for spying and executed by hanging.
The most prominent civilians tried in this way were Democratic politicians Clement L. Vallandigham, Lambdin P. Milligan, and Benjamin Gwinn Harris.
[1] During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a military tribunal for eight German prisoners accused of espionage and planning sabotage in the United States as part of Operation Pastorius.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court recognized the power of the U.S. government to detain enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process, and the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial authority.
It reversed the dismissal by a lower court of a habeas corpus petition brought on behalf of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen who was being detained indefinitely as an illegal enemy combatant after being captured in Afghanistan in 2001.