YASUI
v.
UNITED STATES

U.S. | 1943-06-21
No. 871
320 U.S. 115 Supreme Court of the United States (1943) Negative Treatment
Also reported at: 87 L. Ed. 1793 · 63 S. Ct. 1392 · 1943 U.S. LEXIS 461 · SCDB 1942-128
Cited by 30 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The Court held that the curfew order was valid as applied to citizens, and thus the conviction must be sustained.


Facts & Procedural History

Appellant, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, was convicted of violating a military curfew order. The district court found the order unconstitu…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
Mr. Chief Justice Stone

Mr. Chief Justice Stone delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a companion case to Hirabayashi v. United States, ante, p. 81.

The case comes here on certificate of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, certifying to us questions of law upon which it desires instructions for the decision of the case. § 239 of the Judicial Code as amended, 28 U. S. C. § 346. Acting under that section we ordered the entire record to be certified to this Court so that we might proceed to a decision, as if the case had been brought here by appeal.

Appellant, an American-born person of Japanese ancestry, was convicted in the district court of an offense defined by the Act of March 21,1942. 56 Stat. 173. The indictment charged him with violation, on March 28, 1942, of a curfew order made applicable to Portland, Oregon, by Public Proclamation No. 3, issued by Lt. General J. L. DeWitt on March 24, 1942. 7 Federal Register 2543. The validity of the curfew was considered in the Eirabayashi case, and this case presents the same issues as the conviction on Count 2 of the indictment in that case. From the evidence it appeared that appellant was born in Oregon in 1916 of alien parents; that when he was eight years old he spent a summer in Japan; that he attended the public schools in Oregon, and also, for about three years, a Japanese language school; that he later attended the University of Oregon, from which he received A. B. and LL. B. degrees; that he was a member of the bar of Oregon, and a second lieutenant in the Army of the United States, Infantry Reserve; that he had been employed by the Japanese Consulate in Chicago, but had resigned on December 8, 1941, and, immediately offered his services to the military authorities; that he had discussed with an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation the advisability of testing the constitutionality of the curfew; and that when he violated the curfew order he requested that he be arrested so that he could test its constitutionality.

The district court ruled that the Act of March 21,1942, was unconstitutional as applied to American citizens, but held that appellant, by reason of his course of conduct, must be deemed to have renounced his American citizenship. 48 F. Supp. 40. The Government does not undertake to support the conviction on that ground, since no such issue was tendered by the Government, although appellant testified at the trial that he had not renounced his citizenship. 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.

But as the sentence of one year’s imprisonment — the maximum permitted by the statute — was imposed after the finding that appellant was not a citizen, and as the Government states that it has not and does not now controvert his citizenship, the case is an appropriate one for resentence in the light of these circumstances. See Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 703. The conviction will be sustained but the judgment will be vacated and the cause remanded to the district court for resentence of appellant, and to afford that court opportunity to strike its findings as to appellant’s loss of United States citizenship.

So ordered.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Nilva v. United States, 352 U.S. 385 (U.S. 1957)
    …d not be held in criminal contempt was issued on April 23, returnable on April 27; and on April 27 his hearing was postponed five hours to give his counsel extra time to examine the impounded records. See note 5, supra. Cf. Yasui v. United States, 320 U. S. 115, 117; Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 703.…
  • Hirabayashi v. United States, 828 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1987)
    …urt until a year and a half after the Hirabayashi decision. The Court also affirmed Minoru Yasui's conviction for violating an Oregon curfew order. The Court handed down its decisions in Hirabayashi and Yasui on the same day. Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115, 63 S.Ct. 1392, 87 L.Ed. 1793 (1943). In February 1983 Yasui filed a petition for coram nobis relief, which was dismissed by the district court upon the government’s motion to dismiss the indictment and vacate the conviction. We held that Yasui’s ap…
  • Minoru Yasui v. United States, 772 F.2d 1496 (9th Cir. 1985)
    …and sentenced to one year in prison and a $5,000 fine. United States v. Yasui, 48 F.Supp. 40 (D.Or.1942). The United States Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, but remanded the case to the district court for resentencing. Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115, 63 S.Ct. 1392, 87 L.Ed. 1793 (1943). On remand the sentence was reduced to 15 days imprisonment. United States v. Yasui, 51 F.Supp. 234 (D.Or.1943). On February 1, 1983, Yasui petitioned the district court for a writ of error coram nobis. He alleg…

Previewing 3 of 7 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw