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Q: In Min Yasui's case, could you describe for us the background leading up to his arrest and then what happened after that?

PI: Okay. Min turned himself in, as Gordon had. In fact, Min was the first -- let me start that over again. Min was the first person to bring the challenge to any of the military orders. The day the curfew became effective, March 28, 1942, Min had decided to get himself arrested for curfew violation. He was supposed to be in his home by 8 p.m. He went downtown in Portland after the curfew hour and walked around the streets, trying to find a police officer to arrest him. He'd go up to the police and say, "I'm a person of Japanese ancestry," he had his birth certificate with him, "here's a copy of the curfew order, I'm violating it. Please arrest me." And the police officer said, "No, we don't want to get you in trouble. Just go on home." He finally had to go down to the central police station and almost beg them to arrest them, which they finally did, put him in jail and held him there over the weekend. When Min's case came up for trial, it was unusual because it was not a jury trial; it was simply before the judge. They'd waived the right to a jury trial. But there was, in a sense, a jury, because the judge had asked eight lawyers in Portland, very prominent lawyers, to sit as advisers to the court on the constitutional issues. The judge in Min's case, in fact, was convinced that the curfew order was unconstitutional as it applied to American citizens, but he also felt that Min wasn't an American citizen, even though he had been born here, because he had worked for the Japanese government until the time of Pearl Harbor. So the case revolved really around those two questions, not whether Min had violated the curfew, which he admitted. And when he decided the case, the judge ruled that the curfew was unconstitutional, which was the only judicial ruling to that effect in any of these cases, but that Min had given up, voluntarily, his American citizenship. The Justice Department didn't even agree with that position, so they appealed the case on both sides because of the inconsistent rulings of that judge.

Q: Could you tell us about the sentence that Min had received?

PI: Min was the first of the defendants to be tried, but the judge held off sentencing him and pronouncing a verdict for several months because he wanted to wait for his constitutional advisers to give him opinions, and I think he also wanted to see what happened in the other cases, Fred's case and Gordon's case. So he wasn't finally sentenced until November of '42. The judge handed down the maximum penalty, a year in jail and a five thousand dollar fine for violating the curfew order. It was actually the stiffest sentence for the least serious crime.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.