Background
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded neighboring Poland, starting World War II. After two years of combat neutrality, the United States was drawn into the war as an active participant after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to fears of a fifth column composed of Japanese-Americans by issuing Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This executive order authorized the military to create zones of exclusion, which were then used to relocate predominantly those of Japanese heritage from the West Coast to internment camps inland. On March 23, 1942, General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, set restrictions on aliens and Japanese-Americans including a curfew from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am.
Minoru Yasui was born in 1916 in Hood River, Oregon, where he graduated from high school in 1933. He then graduated from the University of Oregon in 1937, and that college’s law school in 1939. Yasui, U.S. Army reservist, then began working at the Japanese Consulate in Chicago, Illinois, in 1940, remaining there until December 8, 1941, when he then resigned and returned to Hood River. On March 28, 1942, he deliberately broke the military implemented curfew in Portland, Oregon, by walking around the downtown area and then presenting himself at a police station after 11:00 pm in order to test the curfew’s constitutionality.
On June 12, 1942, Judge James Alger Fee of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon began presiding over the non-jury trial of Yasui, the first case challenging the curfew to make it to court. The trial was held at the Federal Courthouse in Portland. Fee determined in his ruling issued on November 16, 1942, that the curfew could only apply to aliens, as martial law had not been imposed by the government. However, he also ruled that because Yasui had worked for the Japanese government he had forfeited his citizenship, so that the curfew did apply to him. Fee sentenced Yasui to one year in jail, which was served at the Multnomah County Jail, and $5,000 fine. This federal court decision with constitutional and war power issues made news around the country.
Yasui then appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After arguments in the case were filed, the court certified two question to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court then ordered the entire case be decided by that court, removing the case from further consideration by the Ninth Circuit.
Read more about this topic: Yasui V. United States
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