Korematsu vs. US

Korematsu vs. United States Essay
Fred Korematsu was born in the U.S. in 1919, but his parents were born in Japan. Even though his parents were not natural born citizens of the U.S, he still was. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Americans of Japanese ancestry were seen as a threat which ended up forcing U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue what is known as the Executive Order 9066, or Exclusion Order. This order stated that any descendents or immigrants from enemy nations, who might be a threat to U.S. security, would be forced to report to assembly centers for safety of the people of the U.S. There were no trials or hearings, just immediate “capture” with no need of any other explanation. Those captured were forced to evacuate their present homes, cities, and even states and many lost their land, houses and their businesses.
Fred Korematsu went apart from the others who obeyed the order of the president and through an attempt of disguise, tried to stay in his homeland. He was a U.S. citizen, and therefore knew he had his rights just like everyone else and that no one could take them away from him. Korematsu was grabbed by police, handcuffed, and taken to jail. His crime was identified as defying President Franklin D. Roosevelt's order of American citizens of Japanese descent reporting to the special camps. Korematsu ended up challenging his conviction in the courts by saying that Congress, the President, and the military authorities did not have the power to issue the relocation orders and that he was being discriminated against based on his race. The Executive Order 9066 violated Korematsu’s basic constitutional rights. The fourth amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." The government’s actions clearly stepped over the boundaries of the constitution. As a U.S. citizen he should not have been pushed around like that. Korematsu decided to take his case to the court.
The court accepted the U.S. military's argument that the loyalties of some Japanese Americans resided not with the United States but with their ancestral country. Eventually the court agreed that separating "the disloyal from the loyal" was a logistical impossibility, the internment order had to apply to all Japanese Americans within the restricted area. Ultimately, the court realized that they were actually balancing the country's stake in the war, with the national security against the "suspect’s" restriction of the rights of a particular racial group. Consequently the court finally decided that the nation's security concerns outweighed the Constitution's promise of equal rights. Basically in the court’s primary conclusion, they decided that all legal restrictions that constrained the civil rights of a single racial group had to have an immediate consideration to therefore be solved. Though the Korematsu vs. the U.S case still resulted in a sort of misery for Korematsu, the fight for a court to take the case was not easy. Korematsu’s case first went to regional court. After being turned down there, he went to the court of appeals to which he was also turned down. Finally his lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court while he was held in the internment camp. The Supreme Court actually decided to take his case but uphold it to the other courts’ in which the decisions by a vote resulted in six to three votes not in favor of Korematsu.
The realization of danger to liberty ended up actually coming from the Army program for deporting and detaining these citizens of Japanese birth. But a judicial decision or interpretation of the due process clause that will sustain this order was more of a major blow to liberty than to the carry out of the order itself. The courts should not have attempted to interfere with the Army in carrying out its task. Minorities do not think courts should be asked to execute a military order that has no place in law under the Constitution. Minorities also believe that the judgment should be reverse and the prisoner should be discharged. “If the people ever let command of the war power fall into irresponsible and unprincipled hands, the courts will have no power equal to its restraint.” Justice Murphy, Supreme Court, suggests that in justifying the decision of Korematsu vs. United States, racial discrimination is used by accusing the Japanese as having dual citizenship, and living in strategic points enabling them to have the ability to sabotage on a mass scale. Justice Jackson, Supreme Court, dissents by claiming that even if the act against Korematsu was a military procedure, the military procedure was not constitutional. That the military order was unconstitutional and that the Constitution was rationalized to show that there was such an order, or the judicial opinion was rationalized to show that it conformed to the Constitution.
The ruling was that Korematsu's appeal was rejected 6-3. They went with the argument that it was necessary to protect the West Coast from any disloyal actions by the Japanese Americans. In effect, during wartime extraordinary measures may need to be taken, even if those measures seem to violate protections of individual liberties.
The case was reopened on January 19,1983 when it was found that Korematsu's lawyers did not have all the facts they needed because several government agencies had withheld information and changed information. This even included outright lying by the War Department to the Justice Department. The argument went that, since the Supreme Court had been given inadequate and incorrect information, their decision would have been based on faulty premises and thus should be reexamined. The end result was that the judge who heard the case found in favor of Korematsu, and his conviction was to be erased from the records. The exclusion order ended on January 2, 1945. The nation's security concerns outweighing the Constitution's promise of equal rights was the biggest factor in determining the court’s final decision. Yaser Esam Hamdi was a citizen of the U.S. and went to Afghanistan for relief work but got captured by the Afghan Northern Alliance(A.F.A) and became trapped there because of the present U.S invasion. U.S armed forces got hold of him from the A.F.A. and he was classified as an enemy combatant and detained by the U.S. armed forces. The court recognized the power of the government to detain enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens and later 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. A reversal of the dismissal of a habeas corpus petition by a lower court 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. The US government released Hamdi without charge and deported him to Saudi Arabia on the condition that he renounce his US citizenship and commit to travel prohibitions and other conditions. In many ways the Korematsu vs. the U.S case relates entirely to the Korematsu v. U.S in that the government, through fear of securing safety, took action on a specific racial group and ignored their rights in order to contain/control them.
An important factor in this case is the requirements of military requirement and the presence of protection against unreasonable search or arrest in the Fourth Amendment. This case shows the importance of interpreting the Constitution and the different ways that the Constitution can be interpreted depending upon a persons own political backgrounds and beliefs. In 1981 President Clinton rewarded Fred Korematsu with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At this reward ceremony Clinton recalled the names of several civil rights pioneers, “Plessy, Brown, Parks… and to that distinguished list, today we add the name of Fred Korematsu;" and with that final line said from President Clinton addressing the hardships and honors Korematsu achieved, the man was finally pleased that after all these years he was now being acknowledged for the bravery he showed in taking that extraordinary stand against the government, as well as the righteously convicting the government on account for what he believed in.