Coram Nobis - Examples

Examples

One relatively well-known example was in regard to the Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States (1944), which upheld a conviction pertaining to the World War II Japanese American internment. In 1984, a federal district court judge granted a writ of coram nobis, overturning the conviction.

In another case, Alger Hiss, convicted in 1950 on two counts of perjury for lying under oath about having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s, filed for a writ of coram nobis in the 1970s, after the FBI released certain records that Hiss argued showed that he had not received a fair trial (and after Richard Nixon, a leading voice against Hiss on the HUAC committee, was disgraced by the Watergate scandal). A federal district court denied the petition, holding that the documents "raise no real question whatsoever, let alone a reasonable doubt, as to Hiss's guilt," that "he trial was a fair one by any standard," and that "he jury verdict rendered in 1950 was amply supported by the evidence — the most damaging aspects of which were admitted by Hiss."

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