Case Details

Initial Verdict in the Lower Courts

Yasui sought to use his arrest as a test case in order to challenge the constitutionality of Public Proclamation No. 3’s restrictions on American citizens.[1]  On November 16, 1942, the United States District Court of Oregon ruled such: 

“That the Act of March 21, 1942, was unconstitutional as applied to American citizens, but that the appellant, by reason of his course of conduct, must be deemed to have renounced his American citizenship.”[2]

Although Yasui had been born in the United States, Judge James Alger Fee reasoned that, because he had been employed by the Japanese Consulate in Chicago, Yasui had effectively demonstrated his preference to be a subject of the Japanese Empire. He also pointed out that Yasui's father had "recieved some recognition from the government of Japan" in 1940.  As Yasui explained in his brief to the Supreme Court, that recognition was merely given for promoting better relations between the Japanese and Americans in Hood River Valley, Oregon. As for his employment at the Japanese Consular Office in Chicago, he had resigned that position on December 8th, 1941, the day immediately following Pearl Harbor "becuase he felt that as a loyal American he could not be working for the Japanese Consulate after the decleration of war."[3]  

Yasui v. United States

Yasui appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Supreme Court of the United States; the Supreme Court heard arguments on May 10 and 11, 1943. On June 21, 1943, the Supreme Court’s short and straightforward written decision would be given. 

First, it found the lower court had erred in its ruling of Yasui’s citizenship, through the simple logic that prior to this case, the appellant's citizenship had not been officially called into question then, nor did the government find any reason to do so now; thus, it remanded the case back to the lower court for resentencing.[4] 

The Court also upheld the constitutionality of the curfew order, simply referring to their decision in Hirabayashi v. United States released that same day. In Hirabayashi, the question to be decided was “whether it is within the constitutional power of the national government, through the joint action of Congress and the Executive, to impose this restriction as an emergency war measure.”[5]

It should be noted that when ruling on Hirabayashi, the Justices conciously descided to provide the narrowest possible scope in their ruling; thus, rather then decide the constitutionality of the entire exclusion order, the only question to be addressed was the curfew order mandated by Public Proclomation No. 3. In Yasui, this was doubly the case; the only real question addressed by the Court in their opinion was the question of Yasui's citizenship, which was simple enough to decide. As for Yasui's challenge to the constiutionality of the Public Proclemation No. 3,  the Court simply wrote:

"Since we hold, as in the Hirabayashi case, that the curfew order was valid as applied to citizens, it follows that appellant's citizenship was not relevant to the issue tendered by the Government and the conviction must be sustained for the reasons stated in the Hirabayashi case."[6]

Descision

Unanimously, the court upheld the convictions of Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui and affirmed the constitutionality of Public Proclamation No. 3.'s curfew order. Chief among their reasoning was that the extraordinary circumstances of warmaking granted Congress and the President powers of discretion to ensure defence and safety, and that “it is not for any court to sit in review of the wisdom of their action or substitute its judgment for theirs.”[7]  The fact that the curfew singled out Americans of Japanese ancestry was waved aside; even if “distinctions between citizens solely” based on ancestry seem “odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality,”[8]  the court simply deferred that judgement to the discretion of the legislature and executive. It was enough for a) military and civil authorities to deem ancestry a “relevant fact” concerning loyalty in “danger areas,” and b) such measures to be taken during a military emergency.[9]