Sotomayor: WWII internment decision 'inconceivable'

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Judge Sonia Sotomayor said Tuesday that a World War II ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing for the detention of Japanese-Americans was "inconceivable."

"A judge should never rule from fear," she told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It is inconceivable to me" that a decision was made allowing individuals to be imprisoned solely on the basis of race. "Our survival depends on upholding" the Constitution, she added.

In the 1944 ruling Korematsu v. the United States, the high court by a 6-3 vote accepted the military's claims that national security required Japanese-American citizens to be barred from their homes on the West Coast.

Sotomayor made her remarks during the second day of her U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings.