Federal Judge Raps Treatment of Nisei Group During War
101 Evacuees Who Refused To Report for Induction Fined One
Cent Each in U.S. Court
PHOENIX, Ariz.--In a ruling which severely criticized
treatment accorded persons of Japanese ancestry during the war, Federal
District Judge David Ling imposed fines of one cent each upon 101 Americans of
Japanese ancestry for failure to respond to selective service calls while at
the Colorado River relocation center at Poston, Arizona.
The 101 defendants had claimed that they had refused to
answer Army induction calls on the ground that their rights as citizens had been
violated by the evacuation and detention in a relocation center.
Judge Ling commended that the evacuation, according to Army
officials on the West Coast, was carried out because of a fear of sabotage from
persons of Japanese ancestry, and drafting of the evacuees who were interned in
relocation centers was inconsistent with the mass evacuation program.
The Federal Judge agreed with the argument presented by A.L.
Wirin of Los Angeles, representing the 101 evacuees that the resentment of the
defendants to the draft, because of the unjust treatment accorded them in the
evacuation and detention, was a natural reaction. He also ruled that the detention of the
defendants at the Poston relocation center was punishment in advance for any
offense which they may have committed by refusing to accept induction.
The court granted stays of executions of six months to three
other defendants who were tried, convicted, and sentenced to one year in test
cases in 1945 before the end of the war.
"That will give them time to apply for executive
clemency from the President of the United States which will no doubt be
granted," Judge Ling said.
Mr. Wirin called the attention of the court to the fact that
all of the defendants, upon their release from Poston, were not unwilling to
volunteer their services in the Army or submit to the orders of their
draft board for induction and that twelve
also had volunteered and were serving in the Army.
Counsel for the defendants indicated that all of those under
indictment were willing to enter the Army if given probation on that condition.
The court waived this suggestion aside in imposing the one-cent
fines and granting stays of the sentences already imposed.
Source: Pacific Citizen.October 12, 1946, page
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