Wilson v. Girard, 354 U.S. 524 (1957), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court refused to stop the executive branch from handing United States Army soldier William S. Girard over to Japanese authorities for trial.
On 30 January 1957, Naka Sakai, a 46-year-old Japanese housewife and mother of six, entered Sōmagahara Air Base in Soma, Gunma Prefecture, for the purpose of collecting spent shell casings to sell as scrap metal.
[1] U.S. Army Specialist Third Class William S. Girard, a 21-year-old enlisted man from Ottawa, Illinois, used a grenade launcher mounted on an M1 Garand rifle to fire a spent grenade cartridge at Sakai, which hit her in the back and killed her.
However, the United States' claim had precedence if Girard was "on duty" when the suspected crime occurred.
[2] After much discussion, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration decided that as a matter of political expediency, they would hand Girard over, given that the case was causing great controversy in Japan and threatened to harm the U.S.–Japan Alliance.