<Begin Segment 8>

TI: Okay. Why don't we -- actually, we have ten more minutes, so I want to keep and ask this question, just to finish up the trial. But why don't we go back to -- so you've been five months in King County Jail. Then you had your trial, which was a one-day trial. Why don't we focus on the verdict and the sentencing of that trial. So why don't you tell us what the verdict was and what the judge did for sentencing?

GH: The -- in the instructions to the jury, before they recessed into their --

AI: I'm sorry. Are you going to ask about interpreting for his father?

TI: Yeah. Let's let him answer this, and I'll follow-up with that.

GH: His, his instructions -- you know, the jury is told what to do by the judge. And so in my situation, the judge says, "You heard all this discussion about the Constitution and all that. That's irrelevant. Whatever the Constitution says, the thing that you must take into consideration is this Executive Order 9066 issued by the general in charge." And he reads it out. "Now, you're to determine to what extent this applied. Is this person of Japanese ancestry? If he is, did he comply with these restrictions? If he didn't, you must come back with a guilty verdict. If he did, then he's not guilty." They went in. It didn't take them too long. As jury, they probably just took enough time to settle down and then review this, these things, instructions and so on, and say it's pretty cut-and-dried, isn't it? Why don't we take a vote on it before wasting too much time? Because they came out fairly rapidly. And, and then the verdict was guilty. And the judge asked, "Is this the way you all felt unanimously?" "Yep." And so that was it. And then two days later --

TI: Before we get to the sentencing, I just wanted -- because Alice reminded me -- to establish the fact that you were Japanese, of Japanese ancestry, they had your father testify. Can you talk a little bit about that because it was interesting in that they asked you to actually be part of that, or you volunteered to be part of that, that questioning.

GH: Oh, yeah.

TI: Why don't you talk a little bit about that?

GH: Well, the -- my dad was very hesitant, and he never was in a courtroom before. But he was asked some questions, and my lawyer, instead of asking me or anything, he popped up and said, his name was -- by the way, my lawyer was the one that Art Barnett had found and selected as recommended as the one to take the case. He was an older person than the first one, and was suitable for many purposes. He wasn't just of our type. He was a Republican. He was a veteran. And he had interest in the Constitution. So he -- and my lawyer, Art Barnett, thinks that he, he probably had a very close consultative tie with the dean of the gradu -- dean of the law school at the time, who was well-known as a constitutional lawyer. And because he said, "I can't imagine that he would have thought of all these things by himself." He says, "He's getting some source." And my, my feeling, I have no way to know this for sure, is that he has access to the dean. Because we asked, we had hearings on various parts --

TI: And the name of your lawyer at this trial was?

GH: Frank Walters.

TI: Frank Walters.

GH: He wasn't well-known.

TI: But can we -- Gordon, let's go back to your, your dad and the testimony.

GH: Yeah. Well, Frank stood up and says, "Your Honor, I think that to be perfectly fair, we should get an interpreter for him in case some questions are not fully understood." And the judge said, "Oh, of course. Of course. Is there anybody here?" And there is a Japanese minister that knew our parents very well, who spoke Japanese, who came once a month to speak to our dad's group. And his, mainly it was his wife, but the couple was, had a, like a book selling, bible selling, religious books source. Their living room was to some extent like a book store, reference source in a variety of languages. And I thought, I thought he might have been there, and he would have stepped forward as a person. Nobody stepped forward. There were no other Japanese there, for one thing. And so it was quiet.

So I said to the judge, "Well, if he really wants interpretation, I could, I could answer that kind of question." So the judge says, I mean, my lawyer said, "Well, we don't have anybody available here apparently, but if you, if you need somebody, our defender feels that he could translate." He says, "Well, is there any objection to that?" And he asks the government, and the government said no. So I had to translate. And it was a very funny thing because I know that Dad knows what was said, so it was not necessary to translate. "Do you have any other children besides the one in the court case, court here?" And Dad's sort of biting his tongue not to laugh. And he says, "No -- yes." Well, I didn't ask it that way. "Do you have any children?" "Yes." "Is one of them here?" "Yes." "Where is he?" And so he points to me. And so he says, "Well, in regards to that question," I said, "apparently he's confirming that I am his son." And that judge could conclude from that that I am of Japanese ancestry. So I served that part, and it was really like a side show.

TI: That's interesting. Let's go back now to the sentencing. It's two days after the verdict. And let's talk about that.

GH: Yeah, the judge, the judge is -- for all practical purposes, he was like a self-appointed extra lawyer for the defense team. His view was -- and he indicated this in his address to the jury, there isn't much the Con -- you heard all this stuff about the constitutional points raised by the defense. The Constitution wouldn't be very valuable if we lost the war. So first thing we got to do is win the war. And therefore, you can ignore that stuff about the Constitution. That's not relevant to the issue of his guilt. So he, he threw out all the arguments we raised about the Constitution. And we had other hearings on this prior to that, which, on which he took the same stand. And it's difficult for me to understand how he could say that when he's in court. We're not having like in Hawaii, all the, all the civil rights and programs suspended because of the war. We didn't have wartime command and the general running everything because of it declared war, necessity of war. The courts are still operating. So what are the courts supposed to do? And he's, his interpretation was, win the war. And so he said, "Well, the jury has answered. And so, but I feel that this young man has been waiting for this trial for five months, and the maximum is twelve months. So we should take into consideration that he's spent about almost half of that time waiting for the trial. So I feel that the sentence should take that into consideration. And so he's got two charges against him. So I would declare that he be sentenced thirty days for curfew violation, thirty days for exclusion order violation, to be served consecutively, back to back, for a total of sixty days." Now, then he said, "Does the prisoner have anything to say?" And so I said, could he -- I asked my lawyer, "Could he raise my sentence to fifteen days for each of the sentence?"

TI: You mean to raise it fifteen more days for each?

GH: Fifteen additional days.

TI: To make it nine --

GH: Forty-five days, each for a total of ninety days. And neither my lawyer nor the judge asked me, asked me, "Why do you, why are you asking that?" Because I wanted to explain that. But they said, the judge said, "Well, I can, I can accept that easily. I can, I can follow that. Forty-five days plus forty-five days, for a total of ninety days." In fact, he says, "We could simplify the whole thing by saying ninety days for each of these two, to be served concurrent -- "

TI: Concurrently. At the same time.

GH: Oh, yeah. Is it concurrently? Yeah. And no, nobody objected to that. Nobody in the courts knew anything about Supreme Court. Nobody had the experience, including our team. And so that was the thing. And when it got to the Supreme Court --

TI: Gordon, I'm going to interrupt you right now because we need to get you to Bainbridge Island.

GH: Okay.

TI: It's a little bit past 12:30. But thank you, and we'll pick it up later.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.