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Korematsu v. United States

United States

Korematsu

  • President has the power to issue orders as necessary to help the military carry out its duties to protect the nation.
  • Executive Order 9066
  • The armed services must protect a society, not merely its Constitution.
  • Alien Enemy Act of 1798,

"This is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States.”

-Justice Owen Roberts

"Korematsu has been convicted of an act not commonly thought a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived."

-Justice Robert Jackson

  • No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
  • Due process requires individuals to be proven guilty through individual, established procedures.
  • No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
  • The government is obliged to provide equal rights.
  • In the American legal system, “guilt is personal and not inheritable.”

Justices who wrote minority and majority opinions:

"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 and because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily." -Hugo Black

Majority opinion: 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.

Dissent: Justice Robert Jackson argued that "defense measures will not, and often should not, be held within the limits that bind civil authority in peace." Justice Frank Murphy wrote that the exclusion of Japanese "falls into the ugly abyss of racism."

Thesis

The Korematsu case shows that the government should protect the people before it protects the constitution.

Precedents

What happened?

Allowed Japanese Americans to be interned in camps during World War II.

  • World War II
  • Military has power to ban American citizens from areas that were critical to national security.
  • Ordered the evacuation of all people of Japanese decent to report to interment camps.
  • Fred Korematsu refused to leave his home.

What is the constitutional issue?

Decision of the Court

Whether or not the government has the power to imprison people based on race and ancestry.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government. Justice Hugo Black delivered the opinion of the Court, which was that legal restrictions on the rights of a single racial group are not unconstitutional.

http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Korematsu_v._United_States

http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/constitutional-law-keyed-to-stone/equality-and-the-constitution/korematsu-v-united-states-2/

http://www.streetlaw.org/en/Page/307/Classifying_Arguments_for_Each_Side_of_the_Case

http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar18.html

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