On this day, March 30, 1942, 227 residents of Bainbridge Island, Washington, were rounded up.

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1. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson's dissent in Korematsu v. United States

Robert H. Jackson



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Jackson and Korematsu v. United States

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, there was great suspicion surrounding Japanese-Americans, particularly those residing on the West Coast of the United States. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, giving the War Department permission to declare some zones "military zones" in which they could prohibit certain people from accessing prescribed areas. With this executive order, the War Department was able to declare that all United States citizens of Japanese ancestry were prohibited from areas in California that were deemed unsafe for Japanese-American habitation for national security purposes, and it forced them into internment camps.

Fred Korematsu, born to Japanese parents on American soil, believed that this was an unconstitutional infringement on an individual's civil liberty. The question that came before the Supreme Court was whether the Executive and Legislative branches went beyond their war powers by depriving citizens of rights with no criminal basis.

Jackson's dissent

The Supreme Court decided that the President and Congress did not stretch their war powers too far by choosing national security over an individual's rights in a time of war. Justice Hugo Black wrote the majority opinion for this case, and Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion. The opening paragraph of Jackson's dissent illustrated his view of the case:

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.

Jackson warned of the danger that this great allowance of executive power presented, through the War Department's ability to deprive individuals of their rights in favor of national security in time of war:

But if we cannot confine military expedients by the Constitution, neither would I distort the Constitution to approve all that the military may deem expedient. That is what the Court appears to be doing, whether consciously or not. I cannot say, from any evidence before me, that the orders of General DeWitt were not reasonably expedient military precautions, nor could I say that they were. But even if they were permissible military procedures, I deny that it follows that they are constitutional. If, as the Court holds, it does follow, then we may as well say that any military order will be constitutional, and have done with it.

Jackson was not concerned in evaluating the validity of DeWitt's claim that the internment of Japanese citizens on the West Coast was necessary for national security purposes, but whether this would set a precedent of war-time racial discrimination that would be used to strip individual liberties.

But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principles of racial discrimination in criminal procedure, and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking, and expands it to new purposes.

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Thu Mar 30, 2023: Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson's dissent in Korematsu v. United States

Wed Mar 30, 2022: Jackson and Korematsu v. United States