Korematsu v. United States

Majority reasoning

The majority, following its earlier decision upholding a curfew order in Hirabayashi v. United States, reasoned that restrictions curtailing the civil rights of a racial group are immediately suspect and subject to the most rigid scrutiny, but pressing public necessity can justify them even though racial antagonism cannot. It held that the military and Congress could reasonably conclude that an unascertained number of disloyal persons existed within the group and that time did not permit separating loyal from disloyal individuals, making temporary exclusion of the whole group a military necessity rather than group punishment. The Court limited its holding strictly to the exclusion order itself, refusing to decide the validity of subsequent detention in assembly or relocation centers because petitioner was not convicted of violating those separate provisions. It rejected the argument that conflicting orders trapped petitioner into criminality, finding the operative order on the relevant date only required him to leave, and it declined to characterize the case as racially motivated imprisonment, framing the exclusion as a military security measure tied to fears of espionage and sabotage.

Dissent reasoning

Justice Roberts dissented, arguing that the case was not merely about temporary exclusion but about punishing a citizen for refusing to submit to imprisonment in what he considered a concentration camp, since the only lawful way to avoid prosecution was to report to an Assembly Center. He detailed the sequence of orders showing petitioner was simultaneously forbidden to leave the area and, later, forbidden to remain unless in an Assembly Center, creating what he called contradictory commands that trapped the petitioner regardless of his choice. Justice Murphy dissented, arguing the exclusion order fell outside the bounds of constitutional military necessity because it applied to an entire racial group without hearings or individualized loyalty determinations, calling it a legalization of racism grounded in unsubstantiated racial and sociological assumptions rather than reliable evidence, and noting that no person of Japanese ancestry was convicted of espionage or sabotage during the relevant period. Justice Jackson dissented, contending that the conviction rested on an act that was innocent for anyone else but criminal only because of petitioner's ancestry, violating the principle that guilt must be personal, and warned that judicial validation of such a military order would establish a permanent constitutional precedent enabling future officials to invoke racial discrimination whenever they could claim urgent necessity.