Densho Digital Archive
Frank Abe Collection
Title: James Omura Interview I
Narrator: James Omura
Interviewers: Frank Abe (primary); Frank Chin (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 9, 1990
Densho ID: denshovh-ojimmie-02-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

JO: Letters that were seized, that's all. The FBI, after all that questioning, no testimony against me. And as soon as I was acquitted, I was brought, naturally, I waited around to thank the members of the jury. And so I was in the corridor, shook hands with them, and just then I noticed that the FBI agent had walked out from the judge's chamber and put a cigarette in his mouth thinking he was going to light it. He took it out again the moment he looked and saw me over here, and he come dashing up that aisle. It's a long way, you know. And then, and when he reached me he shook my hand and congratulated me. I thought it was a nice gesture. He could have testified, 'cause he's the man who questioned me, but he never testified against me. There was no one testifying against me. The, I was prosecuted by the assistant United States attorney and he had no case, really, he just tried to say that the similarity in my letters and in my editorials was the basis of his argument. He had no evidence, there was no evidence, so how could he have evidence?

FA: What, Jimmie, what was the government's case against you?

[Interruption]

JO: Well, the judge was a Oklahoma judge, Judge Rice, and we didn't like that. But Wirin had disqualified Judge Kennedy because he had ruled on the sixty-three, and we objected but he had done it without consultation with us.

FA: What did Judge Rice say before the trial?

JO: Judge Rice, the Sunday before the trial, went hunting with the assistant prosecutor and we considered that a bad omen. During the trial, my attorney twice made a motion for directed verdict of acquittal. Both time he turned it down, saying that enough evidence had been given to, produced by the assistant attorney to be given to the jury. When he ruled that way a second time, my attorney said -- this is after the prosecuting attorney had put in his case. My stand-in attorney, Mr. Sampson, said that the judge had gone against the canons of ethic, and Wirin came to me and said that he was positive I would be discharged today, see. Then he says, "I'm sorry that you're still in it," but he said, "You have a beautiful case for an appeal."

FA: What did Judge Rice say after the trial?

JO: Well, so he, so he gave the case to the jury, then after the jury acquitted me, Judge Rice told my attorney, who told it to me, he went, he went into the chambers and the judge told him that if the jury had convicted me, he would have sustained that conviction even though he knew the higher court would overrule him. Which meant that I was dead duck from before the trial even began.

FA: Why did he feel that way?

JO: Well, I think that during the wartime year periods, all the judges who, who ruled on the resisters' cases, except for Judge Goodman of California, were prejudiced or as they had direct instructions from the attorney general's office to see that we were convicted.

FA: Can you summarize for me very briefly, what was the government's accusation against you and what was your defense?

JO: Well, the government accused me of aiding and abetting others to violate the selective service law. And our defense right from the start was the First Amendment, freedom of the press, and we stuck to it right straight through.

[Interruption]

FA: So you were about to tell me, what was the Wyoming Eagle reporter?

JO: Well, the Wyoming Eagle reporter was very close to me and when the verdict came down he says, "I'm glad you were acquitted," he says. "If you were convicted I wouldn't know what freedom, freedom of the press really meant."

FA: Was that Vern Lechliter?

JO: Yes, Vern Lechliter.

FA: What was he like?

JO: Well, he was a very slender, small person, and he covered the, he was the primary reporter covering the trial. And I would say that he reported as fair as a reporter could.

FA: Tell me again what he said to you after the verdict.

JO: That he wouldn't know, if I was convicted he wouldn't know what freedom of the press really meant.

FA: The government accused you of counseling draft evasion, you said as the first amendment. So you had a good, a good legal case, but how about a moral case? The Pacific Citizen said that you deliberately distorted the news to make it appear that federal authorities were stumped as to what to do with the draft evaders, that your sensational editorial policy sought to pit Nisei against Nisei and evacuees against the WRA. What do you think about that?

JO: Well they are quoting, some of that accusation came from the government, but what isn't told there is the government retracted them. They retracted virtually everything they accused me of. That I distorted, they retracted that. And they have proof that I did not distort. They (retracted) a number of other things that they charged me with. In fact, they withdrew all of them before the trial.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1990, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.