Judge Patel Background

[jim bell]

At 09:12 PM 11/7/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>Fred Korematsu was a Japanese-American shipyard worker in the
>early 1940s. His fiancee was Caucasian.  To stay with her, he evaded
>the concentration camps for two months, but was caught and convicted
>anyway.  His conviction was not reversed until 1983 in the court of one
>Judge Patel.
>
>Page 48, "After hearing lawyers on both sides, Judge Marilyn Patel
>asked Fred Korematsu to address the court.  `As long as my record
>stands in federal court,' he quietly stated, `any American citizen
>can be held in prison or concentration camps without a trial or
>hearing.'  Ruling from the bench, Judge Patel labeled the government's
>position as `tantamount to a confession of error' and erased Fred's
>conviction from the court's records."
>
>(Judge Patel is presiding over Dan Bernstein's challenge to the ITAR.)

However, the fact that it took 40 years to reverse (and didn't, presumably, 
reverse the convictions of others, and didn't compensate people for lost 
property) is yet another reason to take a few pieces out of the hide of the 
SC, as well as a few pounds of flesh nearest the heart.


Jim Bell
jimbell at pacifier.com