reopening the trialAfter World War II ended, Japanese-Americans, including Korematsu, were released from the camps. However, this man’s fight against discrimination was not over. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter named the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to begin a federal review of Japanese-American internment in the war. Two years later, legal historian Peter Irons and researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga discovered key documents that govt intelligence agencies had been suppressed from the Supreme Court during Korematsu's case. These documents found that J. Edgar Hoover had denied that Japanese-Americans had done anything wrong during WWII, and this evidence was enough to reopen Korematsu’s case based on government misconduct. Then, on November 10th, 1983 Judge Marilyn Hall Patel retracted Korematsu’s conviction in a federal court in San Francisco. Although Patel overturned Korematsu’s conviction, the US Supreme Court’s 1944 ruling still stands.
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Fred was not interested in a pardon from the government; instead, he always felt that it was the government who should seek a pardon from him and from Japanese Americans for the wrong that was committed.” -Kathryn Korematsu |
Opinions from the Supreme Court
Although Patel overturned Korematsu’s conviction, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1944 ruling still stands. However, during this Supreme Court Case, the opinions about the legality of internment began to change. When Japanese-Americans fought the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066 and the Wartime Relocation Administration the first time in 1943 with the Hirabayashi case, the Supreme Court unanimously defended government actions during internment under the claim that the country was under wartime conditions. One year later in Korematsu's case, six justices still voted on the side of the government; but the three who did not represented a change in public opinion. Korematsu's trial was the first time government officials began to speak up against the unjust treatment of Japanese-American citizens. These opinions brought light to situation and represent widespread views of internment today.
This exclusion of 'all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien,' from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over 'the very brink of constitutional power' and falls into the ugly abyss of racism." -Mr. Justice Murphy |
Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here he is not law-abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly 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." -Mr. Justice Jackson |