Korematsu v. United States

E94860

Korematsu v. United States is a landmark 1944 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, later widely condemned as a grave civil liberties violation.


Statements (53)
Predicate Object
instanceOf United States Supreme Court case
civil liberties case
landmark case
areaOfLaw civil rights
constitutional law
national security law
citation 323 U.S. 214
constitutionalProvision Article II of the United States Constitution NERFINISHED
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
country United States
court Supreme Court of the United States
decisionDate 1944-12-18
dissentingJustices Frank Murphy
Owen J. Roberts NERFINISHED
Robert H. Jackson NERFINISHED
fullName Korematsu v. United States NERFINISHED
geographicScope West Coast of the United States NERFINISHED
holding upheld the exclusion and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as a valid exercise of war powers
jurisdiction federal
languageOfProceeding English
laterCharacterization example of judicial deference to the military
example of racial discrimination upheld by the Supreme Court
widely condemned as a grave civil liberties violation
legalIssue Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause
constitutionality of Japanese American internment
war powers of the President and Congress
majorityJustices Felix Frankfurter NERFINISHED
Harold H. Burton
Hugo Black NERFINISHED
Owen J. Roberts NERFINISHED
Robert H. Jackson
Stanley Reed NERFINISHED
William O. Douglas NERFINISHED
majorityOpinionBy Hugo Black NERFINISHED
overruledStatus not formally overruled but repudiated
pageInUnitedStatesReports 214
petitioner Fred Korematsu NERFINISHED
raceClassification Japanese ancestry
relatedCase Ex parte Endo NERFINISHED
Hirabayashi v. United States NERFINISHED
Yasui v. United States NERFINISHED
relatedExecutiveOrder Executive Order 9066 NERFINISHED
relatedLegislation Public Law 503 NERFINISHED
respondent United States NERFINISHED
shortName Korematsu
standardOfReview strict scrutiny (later characterization)
subjectMatter internment of Japanese Americans
military exclusion orders
subsequentDevelopment conviction of Fred Korematsu vacated by coram nobis in 1983
effectively disavowed by the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii (2018)
volumeOfUnitedStatesReports 323
warContext World War II
yearDecided 1944


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