Korematsu v United States
Fred Korematsu was forced to move into a relocation camp because of Executive Order 9066, which was signed by Franklin Roosevelt in the name of espionage prevention. In reality, it moved Japanese-Americans into internment camps and oppressed them in these camps by taking away their liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. With this, Korematsu ultimately refused to move into one of these camps and cited the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process clause as his main argument: his liberties could not be taken away with due process of law. Was it valid to evacuate Korematsu and other Japanese Americans during wartime in the muse of public safety?
Breakdown Verdict.
A 6-3 verdict against Korematsu deemed the order as justified. They leaned on a similar case, Hirabayashi v United States, to affirm their conclusion. Justice Hugo Black among other justices and “military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures.” The Supreme Court justices saw public security as the main priority in this case, and the means of achieving it required such an action. Dissenting justices saw it as blatant racism and largely unconstitutional as a result.
Result Going Forward.
This ruling essentially justified civil injustice in the name of military security. Evidence reports in the original case were tampered with and proved that Japanese Americans had no participation in such a plan for invasion, which weakened trust in the government when viewed in retrospect. It was widely looked down upon and seen as leveraging the meaning of national security, however it was not officially overturned until Trump v Hawaii in 2018.
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