Existing comment:
Japanese Internment and the Court
In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court announced two apparently inconsistent decisions the day after President Roosevelt rescinded the military's authority to intern Japanese Americans. In one case, Ex Parte Endo, which arose from a petition for habeas corpus by a Japanese American interned in a military detention camp, the Court held that the military had no authority to detain loyal American citizens. In the other, Korematsu v. United States, the Court upheld the U.S. military's authority to relocate Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to detention centers. Associate Justice Robert Jackson wrote a powerful dissenting opinion in the Korematsu case, arguing that the decision was a "blow to liberty," and a "loaded weapon" aimed at the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. |