Korematsu vs United States Essay Example
Korematsu v. United States (1944)
Case Summary - Fred Korematsu refused to obey the wartime order to leave his home and report to a relocation camp for Japanese Americans. He was arrested and convicted. After losing in the Court of Appeals, he appealed to the United States Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the deportation order. The Court's Decision - The Supreme Court upheld the order excluding persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war zone during World War II. Three justices dissented. Justice Hugo Black delivered the opinion of the Court. He began with the observation that legal restrictions on the rights of a single racial group will always be “suspect” and that “courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny.” However, they are not necessarily unconstitutional. The exclusion order imposed hardships “upon a large group of American citizens. …But hardships are part of war….Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direst emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger.” Justice Owen Roberts wrote in his dissent that 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 Robert Jackson noted that comparable burdens were not imposed upon descendents of the other nationalities (German, Italian) with who the United States was also at war. More on the Case - After the war, Fred Korematsu continued his efforts to clear his name. The ruling in Korematsu troubled jurists and civil libertarians because it suggested that basic civil rights
Case Summary - Fred Korematsu refused to obey the wartime order to leave his home and report to a relocation camp for Japanese Americans. He was arrested and convicted. After losing in the Court of Appeals, he appealed to the United States Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the deportation order. The Court's Decision - The Supreme Court upheld the order excluding persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war zone during World War II. Three justices dissented. Justice Hugo Black delivered the opinion of the Court. He began with the observation that legal restrictions on the rights of a single racial group will always be “suspect” and that “courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny.” However, they are not necessarily unconstitutional. The exclusion order imposed hardships “upon a large group of American citizens. …But hardships are part of war….Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direst emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger.” Justice Owen Roberts wrote in his dissent that 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 Robert Jackson noted that comparable burdens were not imposed upon descendents of the other nationalities (German, Italian) with who the United States was also at war. More on the Case - After the war, Fred Korematsu continued his efforts to clear his name. The ruling in Korematsu troubled jurists and civil libertarians because it suggested that basic civil rights