Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice

Assignment VII

Question 1

Fred Korematsu Toyosaburo owes its fame to having dispute with the United States until the Supreme Court of the United States the constitutionality of Japanese internment on the West Coast during the Second World War. The Supreme Court judgment in the case Korematsu v. United States of America is one of the most controversial decisions made ??by the highest court of the country in terms of racial discrimination.

Written by Justice Hugo Black, the majority decision (6 against 3) dismissed again Korematsu. The judgment stated that, although constitutionally questionable, forced exclusion was justified by exceptional circumstances (of emergency and peril) inherent in war and national defense. The Court did not, however, delivered on Korematsu's loyalty or whether the restriction of civil liberties ethnic group proved legitimate. Rather it limited its opinion on the constitutionality of these restrictions.

However, in another judgment, the Court rendered a decision in December 1944 to more favorable interned. The decision called Ex Parte Endo released a citizen of Japanese descent, Mitsuye Endo , internment camps because the Justice Department and the War Relocation Authority (civilian agency responsible for the relocation and internment of Japanese) conceded that Ms. Endo was a citizen "loyal and law-abiding" [loyal and law-abiding] (Cornell, n.d.). The Court determined that no power was conferred to detain citizens longer than necessary to discern the loyal citizens of the disloyal. It should be noted that the decision Endo, unlike Korematsu, did not rule on the constitutionality of the initial detention as such.

Question 2

On 12 June 2008 the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling Boumediene v. Bush, key decision when determining the legal status and rights bearing citizens detained by U.S. forces and taken to the U.S. base at Guantanamo. The case in question came from a habeas corpus filed by Lakhdar Boumediene, a citizen held in Guantanamo Bay, and, in addition to questioning the adequacy of the Military Commission Act of 2006 to the Constitution, the Court would have to rule on if the prisoners held at Guantanamo were protected by the Fifth constitutional amendment and therefore had the legitimate and constitutional right not to be deprived of due process of law and the rights granted by the Geneva Convention. Justice Anthony Kennedy sided this time with the liberal, and a decision by five votes (the Kennedy-rapporteur of the judgment-, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer Gisburn) versus four (Chief Justice Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito) the Supreme Court held that detainees at Guantanamo Bay could not be deprived of the constitutional right to habeas corpus, and declared unconstitutional the Military Commission Act as the proceedings instituted in the legal text as substitutes for habeas corpus did not enjoy sufficient constitutional guarantees. The federal courts were therefore jurisdiction over habeas corpus proceedings submit detainees and prisoners confined to the U.S. military base located in Cuban territory.

This judge lamented that in this matter the Supreme Court had taken de facto executive competence to the federal courts, but that the judiciary, on the one hand has no experience in fighting terrorism and on the other, is made ??up of people who are not politically accountable to the electorate (Mason & Stephenson, 2011, pp. 657). True, the U.S. federal courts have increased their agenda with habeas petitions ...