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Appellee's draft Board rejected his claim to classification as a conscientious objector and classified him I-A. His administrative appeals were unsuccessful and, after he was ordered to report for induction, he filed suit in the District Court to enjoin his induction and to have the rejection of his conscientious objector claim declared improper. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction preventing induction until a determination of the claim on the merits. That court held that 10 (b) (3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, which provides that there shall be no pre-induction judicial review "of the classification or processing of any registrant," if applied to bar pre-induction review of appellee's classification, was unconstitutional. Held: The draft Board had exercised its statutory discretion, evaluating the evidence in appellee's individual case, and had rejected his claim. Congress may constitutionally require that a registrant's challenges to such decisions be deferred until after induction, when the remedy of habeas corpus would be available, or until defense of a criminal prosecution, should he refuse to submit to induction. See Oestereich v. Selective Service Bd., ante, p. 233.
287 F. Supp. 369, reversed and remanded.
Solicitor General Griswold, Assistant Attorney General Weisl, Morton Hollander, and Robert V. Zener for appellants.
Norman Leonard for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
Appellee's draft Board rejected his claim to classification as a conscientious objector and classified him I-A. His appeals within the Selective Service System were unsuccessful. After he was ordered to report for induction he brought an action in the United States District [393 U.S. 256, 257] Court for the Northern District of California seeking to have his induction enjoined and to have the rejection of his claim to conscientious objector classification declared improper on the grounds that it had no basis in fact, that the Board had misapplied the statutory definition of conscientious objector, and that the members of the Board were improperly motivated by hostility and bias against those who claim to be conscientious objectors. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction preventing appellee's induction until after a determination of his claim on the merits.
In entering the preliminary injunction, the District Court held that it had jurisdiction to hear appellee's claim despite 10 (b) (3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U.S.C. App. 460 (b) (3) (1964 ed., Supp. III), which provides:
This Court has today, after full consideration, decided Oestereich v. Selective Service Bd., ante, p. 233. Because the result here is dictated by the principles enunciated in that case, it is appropriate to decide this case summarily, reversing the District Court.
In Oestereich the delinquency procedure by which the registrant was reclassified was without statutory basis and in conflict with petitioner's rights explicitly established by the statute and not dependent upon an act of judgment by the Board. Oestereich, as a divinity student, was by statute unconditionally entitled to exemption. Here, by contrast, there is no doubt of the Board's statutory authority to take action which appellee challenges, and that action inescapably involves a determination of fact and an exercise of judgment. By statute, classification as a conscientious objector is expressly conditioned on the registrant's claim being "sustained by the local board." 50 U.S.C. App. 456 (j) (1964 ed., Supp. III).
Here the Board has exercised its statutory discretion to pass on a particular request for classification, "evaluating evidence and . . . determining whether a claimed exemption is deserved." Oestereich v. Selective Service Bd., supra, at 238. A Local Board must make such a decision in respect of each of the many classification claims presented to it. To allow pre-induction judicial review of such determinations would be to permit precisely the kind of "litigious interruptions of procedures to provide necessary military manpower" (113 Cong. Rec. 15426 (report by Senator Russell on Conference Committee action)) [393 U.S. 256, 259] which Congress sought to prevent when it enacted 10 (b) (3).
We find no constitutional objection to Congress' thus requiring that assertion of a conscientious objector's claims such as those advanced by appellee be deferred until after induction, if that is the course he chooses, whereupon habeas corpus would be an available remedy, or until defense of the criminal prosecution which would follow should be press his objections to his classification to the point of refusing to submit to induction. Estep v. United States, 327 U.S. 114 (1946); Falbo v. United States, 320 U.S. 549 (1944).
The motion of appellee for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted. The decision of the District Court is reversed, and the case remanded for issuance of an order dissolving the preliminary injunction and dismissing the action.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE WHITE concur in the judgment of the Court for the reasons stated in MR. JUSTICE STEWART'S dissenting opinion in Oestereich v. Selective Service Bd., ante, p. 245, decided today.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK would note probable jurisdiction and set the case down for argument.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.
The evidence in this case, which I have set forth in an Appendix, makes plain, as the Court states, that the question whether the registrant should be classified as a conscientious objector turns on the weight and credibility of the testimony. I therefore agree that 10 (b) (3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967 precludes review of the action of the Board at this pre-induction stage. [393 U.S. 256, 260]
I would take a different view if this were a case where a registrant was moved from a CO (conscientious objector) classification to I-A because he made a speech, unpopular with the Board.
This would also be a different case if the registrant were a member of an institutionalized group, 1 such as the Quakers, whose opposition to war was well known and the registrant, though perhaps unpopular with the Board, was a bona fide member of the group. Then, too, a Board would act in a lawless way 2 if it moved a registrant from a CO classification to I-A and disregarding all the evidence denied him a CO classification.
But in my view it takes the extreme case where the Board can be said to flout the law, as it did in Oestereich v. Selective Service Bd., ante, p. 233, to warrant pre-induction review of its actions.
(A) Gabriel's Letter of August 13, 1965.
In 1965, after he obtained a copy of Form 150 by which a registrant files for conscientious objector status, Gabriel filled out the form and sent his local draft board an accompanying letter explaining his conscientious convictions:
After his personal appearance, Gabriel filed a copy of his summary of the hearing, as provided by Selective Service regulations.
After being denied CO status, Gabriel appealed. And as is customary in such appeals, the Justice Department conducted an investigation into the sincerity of his beliefs. The following is a resume of the investigating officer's report.
After conducting its investigation, the Department of Justice filed a "recommendation" with the local board, suggesting that Gabriel be denied CO status:
[ Footnote 2 ] See White, Processing Conscientious Objector Claims: A Constitutional Inquiry, 56 Calif. L. Rev. 652, 660-667 (1968). [393 U.S. 256, 265]
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Citation: 393 U.S. 256
Docket No: No. 572
Decided: December 16, 1968
Court: United States Supreme Court
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