Johnson 1 Robert Johnson Mr. Padilla Adv. Govt. / Economics 5 December 2012 Korematsu v.

United States & Miranda v. Arizona During World War II, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066. The order called for all Americans of Japanese Descent to be put into internment camps. The Order was passed to secure national security, since the United States was at war with Japan and did not want to risk having their own citizens spy on them. A man named Fred Korematsu decided to not leave his home and he was arrested and tried for it. His claim was that the Executive Order was unconstitutional because it went against the Fourteenth Amendment, which supports equal protection of citizens under the law. The Supreme Court, however, decided that the Executive Order was constitutional, given the current circumstances of that time. This ties back to the type of presidential powers the president has during dire times of the country. The Constitution gives him war powers in which he is able to make any decision that works to protect National Security. And so, Fred Korematsu lost his case. Many Americans believed that the decision had racist backgrounds because of the current war with Japan and the recent bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. They believed that the two events were enough basis to make court decisions against the Japanese Americans. Two justices that were against the decision were Frank Murphy and Robert Jackson, both stating that the decision was based upon racism against people of Japanese descent. However, Judge Hugo Black stated that the decision was made because America is orderly and fears invasion from the

Johnson 2 West Coast. In American Society, because many did not approve of this decision, the Fourteenth Amendment would be applied more and more in later court cases. In 1963, a man named Ernesto Miranda was arrested and tried for raping a seventeenyear-old girl. He confessed that he did rape the girl and that his confession was voluntarily made. Based on his confession, which was written down and presented to the court as evidence, Miranda was sentenced to quite a few years in prison. His attorney, Alvin Moore, argued that Miranda was never told his rights: that he had the right to remain silent and that anything he said or did could and would be used against him in court and that he had the right to an attorney and to counsel. Based on this argument, Moore concluded that Mirandas confession was not voluntary. After he was sentenced and jailed, Moore filed an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court based on his previous argument. The case was lost though because Miranda didnt know his own rights, apparently, and didnt request a specific attorney. After Miranda received parole, all police stations in the United States were required to read everyone who was arrested his or her rights, so that he or she had a chance to defend himself or herself in court. Miranda, however, was stabbed in bar a few years later because of an argument.

Johnson 3 Works Cited "Korematsu v. United States." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 05 2012. Web. 5 Dec 2012. "Miranda v. Arizona." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 05 2012. Web. 5 Dec 2012.