Korematsu v. United States , was a landmark United States Supreme Court. It concerned the constitutionality of military commanders, under an executive order by the President, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. This was regardless of their citizenship. In February of 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066. This gave military commanders the power to evacuate all persons considered a threat to national security from the West Coast of the United States to relocation centers. Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American who was born in the United States, refused to comply with the order. He became a fugitive, but was arrested and sentenced to five years probation. He appealed his conviction with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After having his conviction upheld, the case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 decision, the Court upheld his conviction and ruled the exclusion order was constitutional.
The question before the Court was did the President and Congress exceed their long powers. Did they violate the rights of Japanese and American citizens of Japanese descent?
In the majority opinion by Justice Hugo Black, the Court ruled 6-3 that the need to protect the country from
espionage outweighed the rights of Mr. Korematsu. The issue of discrimination against a person due to prejudice against his ancestry is not a factor. Neither is there any question of his loyalty to the United States. The sole issue is his refusal to comply with a legal order during a time of war.
On May 19, 1942, during World War II, Japanese Americans were ordered to be move into relocation camps by Civilian Restrictive Order No. 1, 8 Fed. Reg. 982. This order, and other similar orders, were based upon Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1942). Fred Korematsu was a Japanese-American man who decided to stay in San Leandro, California and knowingly violated Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the U.S. Army. Korematsu argued that the Executive Order 9066 was unconstitutional and that it violated the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He was arrested, tried and convicted. No question was raised as to Korematsu's loyalty to the United States. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the Supreme Court granted "certiorari."
The decision in "Korematsu v. United States" has been very controversial. Korematsu's conviction for evading internment was overturned in 1983. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 from President Bill Clinton.
Lunar mare
Mare (; singular: mare ) is the name for a great plain on the moon. Several such maria exist. They were formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. The plural form of mare is maria. The Latin word maria means seas. Because of their high amount of iron, they reflects less light than the highlands of moon. So, they appear dark to the naked eye. They are called sea because ancient astronomers looked at the Moon and thought they saw seas and oceans on the Moon. The maria cover about 16% of the surface of the Moon and most of them are in the side of the moon which is visible from Earth.
A lunar mare, Mare Tranquillitatis was the landing site for the first manned landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Apollo 11 landed at .
Aérospatiale SN-601 Corvette
The Aérospatiale SN-601 Corvette is a French twin-turbojet aircraft. It was the only one business jet built by Aérospatiale. It can carry two pilots and between 6 and 14 passengers.
Embraer Emb-202 Ipanema
The Embraer Emb-202 Ipanema is Brazilian civilian aircraft. It's used for crop dusting.
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, , was a United States Supreme Court case. It had to do with the right to die. Nancy Cruzan was a woman who was in a persistent vegetative state. Her family wanted to stop life support treatments so she could die. Hospital workers refused to do this without a court order. Eventually, the case made it to the Supreme Court. On June 25, 1990, the Court decided it was legal to require "clear and convincing evidence" that stopping life support is what a person would have wanted.
On January 11, 1983, Nancy Cruzan's car ran off the road. She landed 35 feet away, face-down in a ditch filled with water. When paramedics arrived, her heart had stopped and she was not breathing. The paramedics resuscitated her, but her brain was damaged by not having enough oxygen. The brain damage caused a persistent vegetative state.
Doctors put a feeding tube into her stomach so food and water could be given through the tube. Without the feeding tube, Cruzan would die from starvation or dehydration, because she could not swallow anything.
In 1988, Cruzan's parents asked her doctors to stop feeding her through the feeding tube. They believed Nancy would not have wanted to live in a persistent vegetative state. She had recently told a friend that if she got badly injured or sick, she would not want to live unless she could live "at least halfway normally." Nancy's parents wanted her to be able to die. However, the hospital refused to take out the feeding tube without a court order.
The Cruzans asked a trial court to order the hospital to remove Nancy's feeding tube. The trial court agreed.
The court said that a person has a "fundamental natural right" in the Constitution to have someone make the decision to remove life support "when the person has no more cognitive brain function ... and there is no hope of further recovery." The court said Nancy's conversation with her friend showed that she would not want to live in a persistent vegetative state.
The state of Missouri appealed this decision. The case went to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which reversed the trial court's decision. The Supreme Court of Missouri ruled that no one can refuse treatment for another person, unless:
The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the Missouri Supreme Court's decision. This was the first "right to die" case that the United States Supreme Court had ever heard.
The Cruzan case divided the Supreme Court. Five of the Supreme Court Justices (judges) wrote their own opinions about the case. Four disagreed with the decision the Court made. However, the Court ruled, in a 5-4 vote, that the Supreme Court of Missouri made the right decision. They ruled that Missouri did not violate the Constitution when it required 'clear and convincing evidence' that Nancy would have wanted her life support to be ended.
The U.S. Supreme Court did rule that competent people (people who are able to make decisions for themselves) have the right to refuse medical treatment. They said the Constitution gives competent people this right in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
However, it said things are different for people who are incompetent (people who cannot not make decisions for themselves for example, because they are in a persistent vegetative state). If another person wants to refuse treatment for someone who is incompetent, they have to show "clear and convincing proof" that refusing treatment is what the person would want.
After the Supreme Court's decision, the Cruzans went back to the first trial court with new evidence. The court ruled that the Cruzans now had clear and convincing evidence that Nancy would have wanted her life support ended if she was in a persistent vegetative state. On December 14, 1990, Nancy's feeding tube was taken out.
Protesters filed seven different petitions with the court to try to get Nancy's feeding tube put back in, but the court refused. Then, on December 18, nineteen people went into Nancy's hospital room and tried to reattach her feeding tube themselves; they were arrested.
Nancy Cruzan died on December 26, 1990. She had been in a persistent vegetative state for eight years.