On June n, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court by a 5-to-3 vote upheld the right of military courts to try civilian dependents accompanying the U.S. armed forces overseas. Last week, ruling on the same two cases, and precisely 364 days after its first decision, the Supreme Court completely reversed itself.
In so doing it threw some 390,000 overseas dependents, along with 23,500 U.S. civilian employees of the armed forces, into a sort of legal no man's land. It also proved, if anyone had doubted it previously, that Supreme Court decisions depend heavily on the personalities and philosophical underpinnings of the...
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