Tomoya Kawakita
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Tomoyo Kawakita (1921-?) was a United States citizen of Japanese ancestry convicted and sentenced to death for treason against the US during World War II.
Kawakita was born in California and, in 1939, went to Japan to visit his grandfather. With the declaration of war between the USA and Japan, Kawakita was unable to return to California and began working as an interpreter in an industrial nickel plant. At the end of the war, he told the US consulate in Yokohama that he was a US citizen and hadn't participated in any acts that would have resulted in losing his citizenship, obtained a passport, and returned to his home country. Shortly thereafter, he was recognized by an American former POW, was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason.
Tomoya Kawakita, an American citizen who worked as an interpreter and a POW guard for the Japanese army, actively participated in the torture (and at least one death) of American soldiers, including survivors of the Bataan Death March.
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Kawakita, born in California, went to Japan in 1939 when he was 18 to visit his grandfather. He stayed, never renouncing his U.S. citizenship. He was employed as an interpreter with a Japanese nickel company. He was never conscripted, but Japanese authorities used him as an interpreter in a prisoner of war camp.
He readily joined in the abuse of American prisoners, "going beyond any conceivable duty of an interpreter," according to the U.S. Supreme Court. He beat some, pushed another into a cesspool and forced the obviously ill into hard labor.
After the war, he re-registered as a U.S. citizen and returned home. His former victims, who knew him as "Meatball," spotted him and turned him in, and he was sentenced to death for treason in 1952. President Eisenhower commuted his sentence to life in 1953.
Kawakita v. U.S., 343 U.S. 717 (1952)
Tomoya Kawakita was a dual US/Japanese citizen (born in the US to Japanese parents). He was in Japan when World War II broke out, and because of the war was unable to return to the US. During the war, he actively supported the Japanese cause and abused US prisoners of war who had been forced to work under him. After the war, he returned to the US on a US passport, and shortly thereafter he was charged with (and convicted of) treason for his wartime activities.
Kawakita claimed that he had lost his US citizenship by registering in Japan as a Japanese national during the war, and as a result he could not be found guilty of treason against the US. Presumably, the reason Kawakita fought so tenaciously not to be considered a US citizen was that he saw this as the only way to escape a death sentence for his treason conviction.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that since Kawakita had dual nationality by birth, when he registered himself as Japanese, he was simply reaffirming an already existing fact and was not actually acquiring Japanese citizenship or renouncing his US citizenship.
The court acknowledged that a dual citizen, when in one of his countries of citizenship, is subject to that country's laws and cannot appeal to his other country of citizenship for assistance. However, even when the demands of both the US and the other country are in irreconcilable conflict -- such as in wartime -- a dual US/other citizen must still honor his obligations to the US even when in the other country.
Although Kawakita lost his appeal, his death sentence was eventually commuted by President Eisenhower. He was released from prison, stripped of his US citizenship, and deported to Japan.
The reason the respondent in this case (the second party named in the case's title) was the United States -- rather than a government official (such as the Secretary of Labor or the Secretary of State) -- is that the case started as a criminal prosecution rather than as a lawsuit.
In 1939 shortly before petitioner turned 18 years of age he went to Japan with his father to visit his grandfather. He traveled on a United States passport; and to obtain it he took the customary oath of allegiance. In 1940 he registered with an American consul in Japan as an American citizen. Petitioner remained in Japan, his father returning to this country. In March, 1941, he entered Meiji University and took a commercial course and military training. In April, 1941, he renewed his United States passport, once more taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. During this period he was registered as an alien with the Japanese police. When war was declared, petitioner was still a student at Meiji University. He became of age in 1942 and completed his schooling in 1943, at which time it was impossible for him to return to the United States. In 1943 he registered in the Koseki, a family census register. 1 Petitioner did not join the Japanese Army nor serve as a soldier. Rather, he obtained employment as an interpreter with the Oeyama Nickel Industry Co., Ltd., where he worked until Japan's surrender. He was hired to interpret communications between the Japanese and the [343 U.S. 717, 721] prisoners of war who were assigned to work at the mine and in the factory of this company. The treasonable acts for which he was convicted involved his conduct toward American prisoners of war.
In December, 1945, petitioner went to the United States consul at Yokohama and applied for registration as an American citizen. He stated under oath that he was a United States citizen and had not done various acts amounting to expatriation. He was issued a passport and returned to the United States in 1946. Shortly thereafter he was recognized by a former American prisoner of war, whereupon he was arrested, and indicted, and tried for treason.
