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Volume 2 Number 4 SUPREME COURT ORDERS JAPANESE AMERICAN REDRESS CASE TRANSFERRED TO THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT
In Hohri v. U.S., (June 1, 1987), the Supreme Court declined to rule on the merits of the case which sought monetary damages for Japanese Americans interned during World War II, and instead remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for transfer to the Federal Circuit holding that the D.C. Court of Appeals lacked jurisdiction to decide the case. This confirms the position of the Department of Justice which asserted in its brief that the issue before the Court (Federal Government taking of private property without just compensation) was the exclusive province of a special court called the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The suit against the U.S. government was brought on March 16, 1983 by Japanese Americans who had been interned in U.S. military-controlled camps during World War II, seeking monetary damages and a declaratory judgment on twenty-two claims based upon a variety of constitutional violations, and other grounds (See January 1987 CIVIL RIGHTS MONITOR for further discussion).
The plaintiff in the case, Mr. Hohri, called the ruling "scandalous" and said the Court had "ducked the issue." A bill to provide redress to Japanese Americans interned during World War II is currently before the Congress. The bill, Japanese Americans Redress Bill (S.1009/H.R.442), would establish an educational and humanitarian trust fund to educate the American people about the dangers of racial intolerance and would provide individual compensation of $20,000 to be paid to each surviving internee, in recognition of individual losses and damages. The bill has 75 cosponsors in the Senate, and 141 in the House.
  
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