Korematsu V United States

Brief Summary of the Case

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i. The next day, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the day of the attack as one which will live in infamy the U.S. Congress formally declared war on Japan. Germany and Italy responded by declaring war on the United States and just over two years into the Second World War, nearly the entire globe was now engaged in what would become the bloodiest conflict in human history. One consequence of Japan's attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor was Executive Order 9066, which authorized the U.S. Secretary of War to designate certain “military zones” where the government had the power to exclude any individual or group deemed a possible threat to the United States' war effort. Most of these military zones were large areas of the western United States, where many American citizens of Japanese descent resided. Though some were recent immigrants, other families had lived in America for generations.

The question that arises consist of, will the President, and congress exceed their war power through the implementation of restricting and exclusion on the rights of Americans of Japanese ancestry. The decision that took place was 6 votes were in favor of the United States while 3 votes were against this decision. It ended as the legal provision executive order 9066 with the United States. Constitution amended 5. However, the court was on the side of the government and agreed that in order to protect the country against the espionage outweighed of the rights of the Korematsu. The argument by the Justice Black regarding the mandatory exception although constitutional believes that this has been justified during considerations of emergency and peril (Santos B., 1999, Pp. 133).

Cases of Korematsu

Under the authority of Executive Order 9066, however, the decision was made to exclude all persons of Japanese descent, regardless of their status as citizens of the United States. Some Japanese-Americans were suspected of being spies, and a small number of Japanese immigrants even declared their allegiance to Japan and their desire to return. Yet the majority of internees were loyal American citizens. Around 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent were held in internment camps during the war, along with 11,000 persons of German ancestry, 3,000 of Italian descent, and at least 81 Jewish refugees. Fred Korematsu was American born Japanese descent who refused to leave his home in San Leandro, California, arguing that internment violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Arrested and convicted - though his loyalty to the United States was never in question Korematsu's case was heard by the Supreme Court, where they eventually reached a decision on December 18, 1944. The court came to a 6-3 decision which upheld the constitutionality of Japanese internment.

Each of the three dissenting Justices gave their own reasons, which offered different insights as to what the central issue of the case was. Justice Frank Murphy deplored the “ugly ...