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Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. | | Korematsu v. United States | | Supreme Court of the United States | Argued October 11 – 12, 1944
Decided December 18, 1944
| | Full case name: | Fred Korematsu v. United States | | | Citations: | 323 U.S. 214; 65 S. Ct. 193; 89 L. Ed. 194; 1944 U.S. LEXIS 1341 | | | | Prior history: | Certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | | | | | | Holding | | The exclusion order leading to Japanese American Internment was constitutional. | | Court membership | Chief Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone
Associate Justices: Owen Josephus Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, Wiley Blount Rutledge | | Case opinions | Majority by: Black
Joined by: Stone, Reed, Douglas, Rutledge, Frankfurter
Concurrence by: Frankfurter
Dissent by: Roberts
Dissent by: Murphy
Dissent by: Jackson
| | Laws applied | | Executive Order 9066 | Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that asked the question, "Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by implementing exclusion and restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent?" Image File history File links Emblem-important. ...
Image File history File links Seal_of_the_United_States_Supreme_Court. ...
Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the...
Jerome War Relocation Center in Jerome, Arkansas Japanese people heading off to an internment camp. ...
Harlan Fiske Stone (October 11, 1872 – April 22, 1946) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as the dean of Columbia Law School, Attorney General of the United States, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and later Chief Justice of the United States. ...
Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court for fifteen years. ...
Hugo Black Hugo LaFayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937 - 1971). ...
Stanley Forman Reed ( December 31, 1884 – April 2, 1980) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957. ...
Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. ...
William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. ...
For the Australian rules footballer, see Frank Murphy (footballer). ...
Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892–October 9, 1954) was United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954). ...
Wiley Blount Rutledge (July 20, 1894 - September 10, 1949) was a U.S. educator and jurist. ...
United States Executive Order 9066 was a presidential executive order issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, using his authority as Commander-in-Chief to exercise war powers to send ethnic groups to internment camps. ...
// The United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court...
Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the...
In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government, ruling that the exclusion order leading to Japanese American Internment was constitutional. The opinion, written by Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu's individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. Jerome War Relocation Center in Jerome, Arkansas Japanese people heading off to an internment camp. ...
Hugo Black Hugo LaFayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937 - 1971). ...
This article is about Fred Korematsu. ...
The decision in Korematsu v. United States has been very controversial. Indeed, Korematsu's conviction for evading internment was overturned on November 10, 1983, after Korematsu challenged the earlier decision by filing for a writ of coram nobis. In a ruling by Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California granted the writ (that is, it voided Korematsu's original conviction) because in Korematsu's original case, the government had knowingly submitted false information to the Supreme Court that had a material impact on the Supreme Court's decision. is the 314th day of the year (315th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ...
In law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction. ...
In law, a motion Coram Nobis (from the Latin in our presence, usually translated in context as the error before us) is a petition to the court in its capacity of a Court of Equity to correct a previous error of the most fundamental character to achieve justice where no...
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel (b. ...
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. ...
The Korematsu decision has not been explicitly overturned. Indeed, the Korematsu ruling is significant both for being the first instance of the Supreme Court applying the strict scrutiny standard to racial discrimination by the government and for being one of only a tiny handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard. Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the...
Strict scrutiny is the highest standard of judicial review used by courts in the United States. ...
Introduction
 Japanese American Internment Center During World War II, western Japanese Americans were forced to move into relocation camps by Presidential Executive Order 9066. This order was specifically a result of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the ensuing anti-Japanese sentiment in America. This order and congressional statutes gave the military authority to exclude citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas that were deemed critical to national defense and potentially vulnerable to espionage. A Japanese-American internment center. ...
A Japanese-American internment center. ...
Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
Serving from 1999 to 2003, Army General Eric Shinseki of Hawaii became the first Asian American military chief of staff. ...
A concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ...
United States Executive Order 9066 was a presidential executive order issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, using his authority as Commander-in-Chief to exercise war powers to send ethnic groups to internment camps. ...
A number of significant legal decisions arose out of Japanese American internment, relating to the powers of the government to detain citizens in wartime. Among the cases which reached the Supreme Court were Yasui v. United States (1943), Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), Ex parte Endo (1944), as well as Korematsu. In Yasui and Hirabayashi, the court upheld the constitutionality of curfews based on Japanese ancestry. In Endo, the court accepted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and ruled that the WRA had no authority to subject a citizen whose loyalty was acknowledged to its procedures. Holding --- Court membership Case opinions Laws applied --- Hirabayashi v. ...
Handed down on December 18, 1944, the same day as the Korematsu v. ...
Fred Korematsu was a U.S.-born Japanese American man who decided to stay in San Leandro, California and knowingly violate Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army, because he refused to be separated from his Italian-American girlfriend. He was arrested and convicted. No question was raised as to Korematsu's loyalty to the United States. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari. This article is about Fred Korematsu. ...
San Leandro is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. ...
The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ...
Certiorari (pronunciation: sər-sh(ē-)ə-ˈrer-ē, -ˈrär-ē, -ˈra-rē) is a legal term in Roman, English and American law referring to a type of writ seeking judicial review. ...
Decision The majority opinion, written by Justice Black, found the case largely indistinguishable from the previous year's Hirabayashi decision, and rested largely on the same principle: deference to Congress and the military authorities, particularly in light of the uncertainty following Pearl Harbor. Justice Black further denied that the case had anything to do with racial prejudice: Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders -- as inevitably it must -- determined that they should have the power to do just this.
Murphy's dissent Justice Murphy issued a vehement dissent, saying that the exclusion of Japanese "falls into the ugly abyss of racism," and comparing the rationale for the Japanese exclusion to that supporting "the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy" — that is the racism of the Nazi regime. He also compared the treatment of Japanese Americans, on the one hand, with persons of German and Italian ancestry, on the other, as evidence that race, rather than the emergency alone, led to the exclusion order which Korematsu was convicted of violating. In his passionate closing paragraph, he wrote: I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must, accordingly, be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment, and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. National Socialism redirects here. ...
Justice Murphy's two uses of the term "racism" in this opinion, along with two additional uses in his concurrence in Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., decided the same day, mark the first appearances of the word "racism" in a United States Supreme Court opinion. Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Gay bashing Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial...
Jackson's dissent By contrast, Justice Jackson's dissent argued that "defense measures will not, and often should not, be held within the limits that bind civil authority in peace," and that it would perhaps be unreasonable to hold the military, who issued the exclusion order, to the same standards of constitutionality that apply to the rest of the government. "In the very nature of things, military decisions are not susceptible of intelligent judicial appraisal." He acknowledged the Court's powerlessness in that regard, writing that "courts can never have any real alternative to accepting the mere declaration of the authority that issued the order that it was reasonably necessary from a military viewpoint."
He nonetheless dissented, writing that, even if the courts should not be put in the position of second-guessing or interfering with the orders of military commanders, that does not mean that they should have to ratify or enforce those orders if they are unconstitutional. Indeed, he warns that the precedent of Korematsu might last well beyond the war and the internment:
A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period, a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes.
Subsequent history Justice Jackson's fears that Korematsu would become a racist precedent, used to justify peacetime discrimination, have not been borne out. The internment, as well as the Korematsu decision, are widely condemned today, and often attacked as racist. Proponents and opponents of curtailing civil liberties both cite it as a precedent for large-scale violations of civil liberties and government war-time powers, either as justification or as a warning sign of what might happen again. Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Gay bashing Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial...
Former Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark, who represented the U.S. Department of Justice in the "relocation," writes in the Epilogue to the book Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans (written by Maisie and Richard Conrat): Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the...
Tom Campbell Clark (September 23, 1899 in Dallas, Texas –June 13, 1977) was United States Attorney General from 1945-1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1949-1967). ...
- The truth is, the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, and despite the Fifth Amendment's command that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, both of these constitutional safeguards were denied by military action under Executive Order 9066 ...
As earlier stated, Korematsu challenged the earlier decision through a writ of coram nobis in the early 1980s. In 1983, in Korematsu v. United States, 584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D. Cal. 1983), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted his writ and overturned Korematsu's original conviction. In that decision, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel held that "there is substantial support in the record that the government deliberately omitted relevant information and provided misleading information in papers before the court" — information that was critical to the Supreme Court's original decision in 1944. In particular, the government suppressed information that their stated military justification for the exclusion and internment of Japanese Americans was, in the words of Department of Justice officials writing during the war, based on "wilful historical inaccuracies and intentional falsehoods." However, the District Court emphasized that in issuing this decision, it only had the power to correct errors of fact, not errors of law. The essential holding of the 1944 Korematsu decision — namely, that a race-based exclusion program founded on considerations of military judgment did not violate the Constitution — remained untouched. Judge Patel concluded: In law, a motion Coram Nobis (from the Latin in our presence, usually translated in context as the error before us) is a petition to the court in its capacity of a Court of Equity to correct a previous error of the most fundamental character to achieve justice where no...
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. ...
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel (b. ...
- Korematsu remains on the pages of our legal and political history. As a legal precedent it is now recognized as having very limited application. As historical precedent it stands as a constant caution that in times of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees. It stands as a caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability. It stands as a caution that in times of international hostility and antagonisms our institutions, legislative, executive and judicial, must be prepared to exercise their authority to protect all citizens from the petty fears and prejudices that are so easily aroused.
The 2001 documentary Of Civil Wrongs and Rights tells the story of the 1983 court case and of Korematsu's life before and after that decision. Peter Irons' book Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases describes the government deceptions in the original Korematsu case.
The U.S. Government officially apologized for the internment in the 1980s and paid reparations totaling $1.2 billion dollars, as well as an additional $400 million in benefits signed into law by George H. W. Bush in 1992. In January of 1998, President Bill Clinton named Fred Korematsu a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. ...
The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ...
In the philosophy of justice, reparation is the idea that a just sentence ought to compensate the victim of a crime appropriately. ...
George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. ...
Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ...
Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ...
William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ...
The Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of the two highest civilian awards in the United States and is bestowed by the President of the United States (the other award which is considered its equivalent is the Congressional Gold Medal, which is bestowed by an...
In 2004, Korematsu filed an amicus curiae brief in the case of Rasul v. Bush, in which Guantanamo detainees challenged their detention as enemy combatants by the Bush administration. In the brief, Korematsu argued, "The extreme nature of the government’s position in these cases is reminiscent of its positions in past episodes, in which the United States too quickly sacrificed civil liberties in the rush to accommodate overbroad claims of military necessity." Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Amicus curiae (plural amici curiae) is a legal Latin phrase, literally translated as friend of the court, that refers to a person or entity that is not a party to a case that volunteers to offer information on a point of law or some other aspect of the case to...
Holding Court found that the degree of control exercised by the United States over the Guantanamo Bay base was sufficient to trigger the application of habeas corpus rights. ...
Detainees upon arrival at Camp X-Ray, January 2002 Guantánamo Bay detainment camp serves as a joint military prison and interrogation center under the leadership of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), has occupied a portion of the United States Navys base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2002. ...
An enemy combatant has historically referred to members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. ...
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America, originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ...
In March 2005, Korematsu died at the age of 86. Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
See also This is a chronological list of notable cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
United States Executive Order 9066 was signed into law on February 19, 1942 (during World War II), by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, utilizing his authority as Commander in Chief to exercise war powers. ...
Jerome War Relocation Center in Jerome, Arkansas Japanese people heading off to an internment camp. ...
Reference re Persons of Japanese Race [1946] S.C.R. 248 is a famous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court upheld a government order to deport Canadian citizens of Japanese descent. ...
Liversidge v. ...
Defence Regulation 18B was the most famous of the Defence Regulations used by the British Government during World War II. It allowed for the internment of people suspected of being Nazi sympathisers. ...
External links -
 "Korematsu v. United States" on Wikisource. - Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com
- Prisoners test legal limits of war on terror using Korematsu precedent, USA Today, April 18, 2004
- Of Civil Wrongs and Rights, official site (2001 P.O.V. documentary on the 1983 coram nobis case)
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