Today in Supreme Court History: December 18, 1944

12/18/1944: Korematsu v. U.S. decided.

Comments

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Supreme Court separately decided (Ex parte Endo) that Congress did not authorize the detention of those "concededly loyal."

The opinion did not decide the constitutional issue. Murphy and Stone would have and declared it unconstitutional on that ground.

Chief Justice Roberts in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) declared they would take:

"the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—'has no place in law under the Constitution."

Justice Sotomayor's dissent argued the majority, in so many words, " doth protest too much, methinks, "given the realistic breadth of the majority opinion, including the discretion it left open to the executive to discriminate against a disfavored group in the name of national security.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Steve Vladeck has some wider analysis (including outside the paywall of the bonus entry) about the case.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/181918167