# Error coram nobis question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/error-coram-nobis-question/44743>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 9, 2000, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/error-coram-nobis-question/44743 "2000-12-09T07:10:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2000, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/error-coram-nobis-question/44743/1 "2000-12-09T07:10:26Z")

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I was reading a book about the Korematsu v. U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1944, when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.

Many years later, attorneys for Korematsu used something called an “error coram nobis” petition to get a Federal judge to throw out Korematsu’s earlier conviction of violating the exclusion order.

My question for the lawyers who hang out here is: did the reversal of Korematsu’s conviction do anything about the precedent set in the Supreme Court case back in 1944 or did it just serve to clear Korematsu’s name and criminal record?

I don’t wish to start a debate on the pros and cons of Japanese relocation in WWII, but I am just interested in this specific legal aspect of it.

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2000, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/error-coram-nobis-question/44743/2 "2000-12-09T07:43:21Z")

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Read the last 2 posts by **DSYoungEsq** in this thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=15936](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=15936)

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**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2000, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/error-coram-nobis-question/44743/3 "2000-12-09T23:02:38Z")

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Thanks for the reference. So I can presume that some of the Korematsu decision stands as precedent, but only the parts referring to whether or not the government may decide to exercise its wartime powers in a particular way against a specified ethnic group.