Court Opinion

ID: 9653537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:48:23.65058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:59.896880
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the opinion written by Wilbur, C. J.)
It is thought by the majority that the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Hirabayashi v. United States, June 21, 1943, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774, laid down the fundamental principles governing the instant case and that therefore no extended discussion of them is required.
The Hirabayashi case was certified to the Supreme Court of the United States, by this court, after the Attorney General had suggested that such action should be taken, and I entertain no doubt as to the wisdom of this action. That case presented certain war power constitutional questions as to which the welfare of the nation required prompt and final authoritative answers, and while this court had the jurisdiction to decide them, our decision would be the pronouncement of an intermediate court and would not be final. By promptly certifying the case it was made possible for the Supreme Court to settle the important questions during the court’s Spring term. The members of this court have never differed as to their decisions in any of the Japanese cases,* 1 but the opinions now being filed reveal that they have never been able to speak in concert as to their reasoning.
In preparing this concurring opinion I *305am aware that Judge DENMAN, who does not join in the main expression of the court, concurs only in the result and advances widely different reasoning in his concurrence. To his concurring opinion he annexes an opinion which he filed in his opposition to the certification of the Hirabayashi case.1a It is apparent that the broad issues of the latter case are present here. This opinion does not respond to Judge DENMAN’S concurring opinion in this case, but does notice material contained in the Hirabayashi dissenting opinion.
Appellant relies heavily upon Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 53 S.Ct. 190, 77 L.Ed. 375, a case in which the subject of state martial law and the jurisdiction of federal courts in regard thereto is treated.
It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court in the Hirabayashi case did not mention the Sterling case, and this fact makes it quite conclusive that the supreme judicial body of the nation regarded the law applicable to a local disturbance as having little analogy to the legal power of our government to resist an attempt to subject it and the American people to a foreign will. This, in my opinion, is one of the cardinal errors of the appellant’s case as it has been presented to us. One paragraph of the Supreme Court’s main opinion in the Hirabayashi case is sufficient to guide us as to the extent of the war powers of the President and the Congress and is sufficient to inform us that we are not to sit in judgment over the wisdom of actions taken under such powers.
We quote from the main opinion: “Since the Constitution commits to the Executive and to Congress the exercise of the war power in all the vicissitudes and conditions of warfare, it has necessarily given them wide scope for the exercise of judgment and discretion in determining the nature and extent of the threatened injury or danger and in the selection of the means for resisting it. Ex parte Quirin, supra, 317 U.S. 1, 28-29, 63 S.Ct. 2, 10-11, 87 L.Ed. 1, cf. Prize Cases, supra, 2 Black 670, 17 L.Ed. 459; Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat 19, 29, 6 L.Ed. 537. Where, as they did here, the conditions call for the exercise of judgment and discretion and for the choice of means by those branches of the Government on which the Constitution has placed the responsibility of warmaking, it is not for any court to sit in review of the wisdom of their action or substitute its judgment for theirs.”
At this point it would perhaps be well to note that the legality of restraining Japanese aliens or American citizens of Japanese ancestry to War Relocation Centers is not in this case nor was this question involved in the Hirabayashi case. The actions of General DeWitt,2 considered in this case, were under the authority of Congressional Acts and Executive Orders and were taken as steps to control the appellant and others preparatory to their removal from the military zone in which they found themselves.
Appellant had resisted the government’s right to take this war move so far as his person was concerned, and he was arrested and convicted of violating the order. We are asked, in effect, to annul the conviction by deciding that in our judgment the defensive strategy of the General in charge was not justified by the facts and therefore was illegal and unconstitutional.2a The appeal indicates a lack of understanding of the comparative rights of *306individuals in times of peace and in times of war. The great and far reaching power necessary to the prosecution of war, of course, disturbs the ordinary habits and customs of the civilian. It always has done so, but modern war has brought home to us a clearer realization that civilians as well as the armed forces are under the compulsion of acting in cooperation with military necessity. The duty of making final decisions in the prosecution of war must be placed somewhere and the Constitution places this duty with the Congress and the President. How weak indeed our country would be in the kind of world' in which we live, if before their validity could be regarded as certain, war strategy orders would have to be ratified and validated by the courts after a trial of fact as to their necessities. The President may not declare war, Congress does that, but the President is the Commander-in-Chief. His, as Mr. Chief Justice Hughes has said, is the duty not only to wage war but to wage war successfully. The border line of that power has never been defined. It is the genius of our representative government that as great a part of war action as is possible shall be under Congressional enactment and every President in every war we have ever prosecuted has adhered to this principle. The Congress controls the purse strings and this alone is sufficient to make cooperation between the executive and the legislative authorities absolutely necessary. It has been adhered to in the action taken upon which this case is brought. There is no sanction in our governmental scheme for the courts to assume an overall wisdom and superior virtue and take unto themselves the power to visé the Acts of Congress and the President upon war matters so long as such acts are not in conflict with provisions of the Constitution itself. It is idle to go further and speculate as to what would or should happen in instances where courts and the other two branches of the government were immovably aligned against each other.3 Any such situation would mean the failure of the government structure itself.
A large part of our Pacific Ocean Navy had been wrecked in a peace time treacherous raid by Japan and America had declared war almost immediately. The General charged with the defense of the Western mainland proceeded under Congressional Acts and Executive orders to control the movement of Japanese nationals and American-born of Japanese ancestry preparatory to their removal from the coastal zone. Appellant resisted the military orders designed to accomplish these ends.
It seems to me that the situation as we now see it absolutely negatives the idea that the district court had or the circuit court has any jurisdiction to pass upon the issue of necessity for the war action taken. To me it is quite preposterous that either of the courts mentioned should assume the legal power to require a showing in a public trial as to whether or not those ordered excluded from the zone included fifth columnists, enemy informers or saboteurs.3a
However, Judge DENMAN opposing the certification of the Hirabayashi case to the supreme court states in his dissenting opinion that this court, which is made up of men long residing in or near the Pacific slope and who have come in contact with Japanese is therefore especially qualified to know and understand whether or not there was in fact a good military reason for the actions questioned in this case.
If I understand the views expressed in the dissenting opinion in the Hirabayashi case, it is that the district court should try the legality of General DeWitt’s orders upon evidence of their necessity *307whether the evidence consist of testimony or judicial notice or both and that this court should review the judgment of the district court upon the evidence taken and upon the several judges’ personal knowledge of the Japanese people. Thus, if after a trial of the facts it should be found that the general issuing the order had good cause for thinking that the people who were ordered excluded from the coastal zone might cause trouble, these courts should hold the order legal, otherwise they should nullify it. Upon this premise restrictions upon the activities of Japanese in the Pacific Coast states both legal and social are judicially noticed in the dissenting opinion as likely to produce anti-American or pro-Japanese acts in resentment and these facts therefore constitute evidence supporting the order. As material intending to establish the unreasonableness of the General’s order under attack the author of the dissenting opinion cites a statement of government counsel made in response to a question propounded to him from the bench by Judge DENMAN that no indictment or information charging espionage, sabotage or treasonable act has been filed against those subject to the questioned orders.4 I am in total disagreement with this theory.
I feel impelled to comment upon Commodore Perry’s expedition to the Liu Chiu and Japanese Islands in 1853,5 because it has been misdescribed as an act of aggression from which a Pearl Harbor and a Japanese hatred would more or less naturally flow. It is sufficient, of course, so far as we are to be concerned with the issues of this case, that war existed between the United States and Japan when General DeWitt issued the orders here questioned and that a powerful attempt to invade the West Coast seemed imminent. It could not be doubted that aid would be afforded the invading forces by Japaneses nationals and some sympathizing citizens of Japaneses ancestry.
However, it is historically incorrect to assume that the necessity for the military control of resident Japanese-blooded people is the visitation of our father’s sins upon us.
Commodore Perry with his small American fleet was not bent upon a blustering imperialistic invading expedition when he went into Japan. The Russian, Portuguese, English and Dutch had been there long before under the most limited and humiliating restrictions. We had great need for a station westerly of Honolulu wherein our ships of commerce (by this time steamships as well as clippers) could “be supplied with wood, water, provisions, and coal, and other articles their necessities may require * * (Article II of the treaty negotiated by Commodore Perry, 11 Stat. 597.) The sailors of our merchant marine had been cruelly treated and murdered when they scrambled upon Japanese rocks from their storm wrecked vessels. There was no consular or ambassadorial officer through which we could officially express our needs, and there was no working mode of communication through which our protests could be conveyed. The Perry expedition was officially dispatched by the President of the United States under the most careful instructions to communicate our needs and register our protest to the Government of Japan through tact and consideration.6
A very interesting, short account of Perry’s expedition, its purposes and accomplishments is contained in Ambassador Joseph C. Grew’s book, entitled “Report from Tokyo.” I quote from it in the margin.7
*308Upon Commodore Perry’s return he made an exhaustive, thoroughly documented official report of his expedition to his government, entitled “Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan.” At page 108 of this Narrative, the text of Secretary of State Edward Everett’s supplemental instructions to Perry is printed, and I briefly quote therefrom. (The original instructions had been drawn by Secretary of State Daniel Webster, predecessor in office of Mr. Everett.) “The President concurs * * * that you should secure one or more ports of refuge of easy access. If you find that these cannot be obtained in the Japanese islands without resort to force, it will be necessary that you should seek them elsewhere. * * * In establishing yourself at one or two convenient points * * *, with the consent of the natives, you will yourself pursue the most friendly and conciliatory course * * *. Take no supplies from them except by fair purchase, for a satisfactory consideration. * * * Make no use of force, except in the last resort for defence, if attacked, and self-preservation.”
If Perry was ready for eventualities when his vessels poked their way into the land-locked harbor of “Yeddo,”8 he was only being cautious in the light of history and living up to the traditions of our navy. An American vessel some years before *309had been fired upon when the Japanese learned that it had been disarmed by its skipper as proof of its peaceful intentions. Officers and men of the United States Gunboat Preble had had great difficulty in rescuing nineteen men who had been shipwrecked and had been held in prison for eighteen months by the Japanese Government.9 What Perry10 did and how he and his men conducted themselves after they entered the Japanese harbor have their great importance. No shot was fired, and he markedly succeeded in his mission after long and practically inexhaustible patience.
Any well-informed Japanese knows that Perry’s expedition with the American nation behind it saved Japan from being cruelly invaded by power- and commerce-hungry nations in the grand day of imperial conquests.
In my opinion the considerations upon which General DeWitt acted were much more fundamental than the necessity for defense against a Japaneses retaliation for the Perry incident or for a defense against Japaneses retaliation upon the score of legal restrictions and social discriminations suffered by American citizens of Japanese descent or by Japanese nationals in the United States.
General DeWitt’s orders were issued in the light of a knowledge of Japan bent upon accomplishing a Gargantuan racial dream of “Hakka I chi U ” the eight corners of the earth under the Japanese roof, or supremacy over all peoples.11, 11a This fatal ideology has driven powerful nations throughout history to commit unmeasured and unnumbered crimes only to cause them to sink into dishonor and impotence. Oitr military command knew of the monstrous practices of the Japanese in occupied China and it knew of the especial danger from the ranks of the Kibei12 upon our western coast.
There are many loyal American citizens of Japanese descent who are bearing their burden uncomplainingly — a burden heavy enough, it is true, but light indeed compared with that of other thousands.

 The group of cases before this court arising out of military orders are sometimes referred to as the “Japanese cases.” They include Hirabayashi v. United States, June 21, 1943, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774, Yasui v. United States, June 21, 1943, 320 U.S. 115, 63 S.Ct. 1392, 87 L.Ed. 1793, and Korematsu v. United States, June 1, 1943, 319 U.S. 432, 63 S.Ct. 1124, 87 L.Ed. 1497.

 That opinion was filed March 28,1943, and was amended September 20, 1943, and again amended December 1, 1943, as of September 20, 1943. Although the unamended opinion appeared in our advance sheets and was published in various law journals and widely circulated, it has not been published in the official federal reporter. This because written comment by one of the judges stating his dissent to the order of certification was not considered an opinion in a case, hence was not forwarded to the publishers of the Federal Reporter. The original dissent which was widely published, as I have said, contained comment regarding Admiral Perry’s expedition to Japan, which in my opinion gave a wrong impression of that epochal event and of the great sailor-diplomat heading it. If my comment upon the Perry expedition as it appears in this opinion should impress the reader that I attack a proposition not advanced in the case. Since the amendments to the Hirabayashi dissent opinion have been made. I explain that a misunderstanding of that expedition could result in a monstrous conception that Pearl Harbor was more or less a repayment to us in our own coin. Nothing could be more erroneous.

 Lieutenant-General John L. DeWitt, Commanding General, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, during the period herein considered.

 Disobedience to the General’s orders is made an offense triable and punishable *306under civil court jurisdiction. Tlie punishment dealt out is not claimed to be cruel and unusual and for that reason unconstitutional. As a matter of fact appellant was placed under a six months’ probationary sentence.

 There have been a few instances in which conflict between the military and the courts have occurred. No satisfactory solution to this impasse has been worked out. Good sense has come to the rescue in most instances and peace has come without victory to either side. The American peopie do not take kindly to military government, and public sentiment remains the driving force that compels its limitations.

 I do not regard the ordering of appellant to remain in a given place or to stay in a given place in order to be later evacuated from the zone as a part of subsequent incarceration after he has been evacuated. It is refreshing to note that not one so evacuated and thereafter confined in an assembly center or war relocation center has prosecuted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to decision.

 During this period there were numerous accounts in the press of the discovery of short wave radios, cameras and arms found in the possession of Pacific Coast Japanese long after they had been ordered turned in to the military authorities. Students of Japanese officials’ conduct know such officials to be the equal of any in the fine are of espionage and knows that they excel in practice of deception behind the mask of gracious politeness.

 Dennett, Tyler, “Americans in Eastern Asia,” The Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1922; Barrows, Edward M., “The Great Commodoré,” The Bobb-Merrill Co., N'. Y., 1935; Treat, Payson J.,'“Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Japan, 1853-1895,” vol. I, Stanford University Press, 1932.

 For text of treaty, see Perry’s “Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan,” page 440, et seq.

 “It is necessary that we now assess, coolly and impassively, the events of the past ninety years in the Pacific — the ninety years that have elapsed since Commo-' dore Perry concluded with Japan the treaty that opened the way for the subsequent admission of Japan into the family of nations.-
: “We are today being given dreadful .evidence that the process of Japan’s emergence from three centuries of isolation and *308of her assimilation into the family of nations is far from complete. Except for brief contacts at widely spaced intervals * * * Japan had * * • been in virtual isolation since the very beginning of her history. * * * Her polity, then as now, was tribal in character. As a nation, the Japanese possessed the virtues of a tribal community: homogeneity and subordination of the individual to the community; but they also possessed the defects and weaknesses of a primitive community: they revered the tribal sanctions and feared change. * * * Although the American Government was cognizant of the trend * * *, its purpose in sending Commodore Perry to Japan in 1853 was primarily to ameliorate conditions which grew out of the growing commerce of the United States with China and the presence of a large number of American whaling ships off the coast of Japan. The advent in the China trade of steamships, with their limited capacity to carry coal, created insistent need for at least one coaling station intermediate between the Pacific coast of America and China. Further, American vessels had been shipwrecked in Japanese waters, and American seamen * * * had been treated with inconceivable brutality. A third consideration was the need for establishing depots in Japan from which American whaling ships could restock themselves * * *_
“After incredible obstacles and difficulties, Commodore Perry succeeded on March 31, 1854, in concluding with the Japanese a treaty which, although limited in scope, met the immediate needs of the moment. However, it contained one feature the importance of which the Japanese had not foreseen, and that was the assent of the Japanese to the stationing in Japan of an American consular officer. It was in the exercise of that treaty provision that the United States dispatched to Japan in 1856 its first diplomatic representative, Townsend Harris.
“The selection of Harris * * *■ was an extraordinarily happy one. He had * * * acquired a familiar knowledge of Japan * * * of government, of their customs, and of their characteristics; ano he had dedicated himself to the task of helping the Japanese to prevent the extension to Japan of exploitative practices pursued by the white man in his dealings with the backward peoples of the East. * * * So long as Japan remained in seclusion, * * * she was not entitled to the privileges which membership in the family of nations would confer; and it was Harris’ aim to induct Japan into the family of nations under the most favorable auspices. He prepared and, after intolerable delays and indignities imposed upon him by the Japanese, presented to the Japanese Government a Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of the most liberal character possible. * * * It took Harris two years of patient and tactful negotiation before his treaty was signed. But this American did far more than negotiate a treaty. He educated the Japanese officials in the ways of diplomacy, international law, economies, and commerce. He provided Japan with the information which she needed to merge into the world. * * * A Japanese, Dr. Inazo Nitobe, wrote of him: ‘A man of stern rectitude and gentlest powers of persuasion, he, indeed, more than any other, deserves the epithet of benefactor: because in all his dealings with us, the weaker party, he never took advantage of our ignorance, but formulated a treaty with the strictest sense of Justice.’ * *

 See Chapter XV, Barrows “Great Commodore.” The Japanese had been informed of Perry’s coming as Japanese boats brought the news to them from Shui, the capital of the Islands of Liu Chiu where Perry had anchored for some time.

 See Perry’s “Narrative,” page 60, for account of a Japanese attack upon the United States Steamer Morrison, its officers and men, when it sailed into a Japanese harbor with guns removed, upon a mission of amity and mercy to return Japanese nationals who had been shipwrecked upon our Pacific shores, and Dennett, “Americans in Eastern Asia,” page 246. See, also, experience of United States Gunboat Preble, in the “Narrative.”

 Mathew Culbraith Perry was a midshipman at fourteen, served with distinction in the war of 1812, and in the war with Mexico. His brother was Oliver Hazard Perry of Lake Erie fame. Commodore Perry ranks as one of the great figures of our Navy’s glorious history. As a diplomat he ranks among the great of that calling.

 See “How Japan Plans to Win,” Kinoaki Matsuo. (Translation. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1942.)
See General Araki in a widely circulated pamphlet setting out Japan’s national policy, published in 1933 in Ta Kung Pao.

 The following taken from Vol. Ill, No. 12, (Nov. 1, 1943) Contemporary China, condenses the Japanese conception of their Mikado and his place in the government as follows:
“1. He is a divine person, descended from a goddess, and therefore not subject to any human laws.
“2. He is so aloof from mundane affairs that he does not take direct part even in the business of governing his own country.
“3. He acts only on the advice of his ministers and is therefore not responsible for anything done in his name.
“4. He occupies a throne which is established forever, and continues a line of rulers ‘unbroken for ages eternal.’
“5. He is destined to be the ruler of all nations, when all peoples from the ‘eight corners’ of the world will be brought under ‘one roof.’
“6. Any war fought in his name is a holy war, and anyone who is killed while fighting his war becomes immortalized as a god in the Shinto pantheon.”

 Kibei — American-born of Japanese descent who have been sent to Japan in their early youth for indoctrination in Japanese customs and religious and governmental beliefs and have then been returned to the United States.