Fred Korematsu challenged his conviction for defying wartime exclusion orders that forced roughly 120,000 people of Japanese descent — most of them U.S. citizens — into internment camps. A 6–3 Court upheld the exclusion under 'the most rigid scrutiny,' deferring to military judgment. Justice Murphy's dissent condemned the ruling as descending into 'the ugly abyss of racism.' Korematsu was never formally overruled until Trump v. Hawaii (2018), where Chief Justice Roberts declared it 'gravely wrong the day it was decided.' The case is a permanent reminder of how ordinary constitutional protections can collapse in wartime panic.