Fighting for Justice: The Coram Nobis Cases (film)

Documentary film that provides a short overview of the coram nobis cases , based on interviews with attorneys Dale Minami , Peggy Nagae , and Rod Kawakami and television footage of other key figures.

After introductory clips of Minoru Yasui , Minami, and Fred Korematsu , narrator Ken Kashiwahara briefly explains the wartime exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans and the initial resistance and trials of Yasui, Gordon Hirabayashi , and Korematsu. In a clip from the earlier documentary Unfinished Business and a television interview, legal scholar Peter Irons explains how the documents he and researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga found in the National Archives enabled the coram nobis cases. Through narration, video, and interviews with the attorneys, the story of the coram nobis cases follows. The film ends with a listing of each of the three legal teams involved in the cases.

The Fighting for Justice tape also includes Personal Justice Denied: An Issue for All Americans , a 90-minute video of a panel discussion from February 19, 1998, at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History that features Korematsu, Hirabayashi, Minami, Nagae, and Kawakami.

Might also like Unfinished Business: The Japanese American Internment Cases (1985); Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2000); A Personal Matter: Gordon Hirabayashi vs. the United States (1992)