President Franklin D. Roosevelt had authorized military commanders to secure areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded", and Japanese Americans living in the West Coast were subject to a curfew and other restrictions before being removed to internment camps.

On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, as head of the Western Defense Command, to exclude certain persons from "military areas," regardless of their ancestry or country of citizenship.

On May 3, 1942, DeWitt issued an order requiring Japanese Americans in the Seattle area to report to assigned assembly points for "evacuation" to isolated inland camps.

The jury deliberated for just ten minutes before it returned two guilty verdicts, one for the curfew violation and another for the exclusion order, and Hirabayashi was sentenced to consecutive 30-day jail terms.

The Justice Department expected a legal challenge to all of the three substantive elements of Roosevelt's and DeWitt's directives to Japanese Americans: curfew, exclusion, and internment.

(Although Hirabayashi had been convicted of two violations, the two sentences had been served concurrently and so the Justices chose to consider only the curfew, not the more controversial exclusion of Japanese American citizens.

)[6] Minoru Yasui was "released" to the Minidoka concentration camp on time served, and Hirabayashi, who had been living in Spokane, Washington since he had finished his sentence at Catalina, briefly remained free before he was sent to the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary when he refused to comply with a draft order.

[8] This case has been largely overshadowed by Korematsu v. United States,[9] decided the following term, in which the Court directly addressed the constitutionality of the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

Eleven lawyers who had represented Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Minoru Yasui in successful efforts in lower federal courts to nullify their convictions for violating military curfew and exclusion orders sent a letter, dated January 13, 2014,[12] to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr.