Judge Patel Background

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

Jim McCoy pointed me to an interesting book called "The Courage
of Their Convictions" by Peter Irons.  It just happens to
reference Judge Patel.

Fred Korematsu was a Japanese-American shipyard worker in the
early 1940s. His fiancee was Caucasian.  To stay with her, he evaded
the concentration camps for two months, but was caught and convicted
anyway.  His conviction was not reversed until 1983 in the court of one
Judge Patel.

Page 48, "After hearing lawyers on both sides, Judge Marilyn Patel
asked Fred Korematsu to address the court.  `As long as my record
stands in federal court,' he quietly stated, `any American citizen
can be held in prison or concentration camps without a trial or
hearing.'  Ruling from the bench, Judge Patel labeled the government's
position as `tantamount to a confession of error' and erased Fred's
conviction from the court's records."

(Judge Patel is presiding over Dan Bernstein's challenge to the ITAR.)

(Full reference: Irons, Peter "The Courage of Their Convictions:
Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court"
New York: Penguin Books, 1990  ISBN 0 14 01.2810 7)

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com