Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/185
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:29:23+00:00

Document:
Petitioner was indicted for willfully and knowingly failing to report for and submit to induction into the Armed Forces of the United States. 1 At trial, petitioner's only defense was that he should have been exempt from military service because he was the 'sole surviving son' of a family whose father had been killed in action while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States. 2 The District Court held that he could not raise that defense because he had failed to exhaust the administrative remedies provided by the Selective Service System. Accordingly, petitioner was convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, with one judge dissenting. United States v. McKart, 395 F.2d 906 (C.A.6th Cir. 1968). We granted certiorari. 393 U.S. 922, 89 S.Ct. 256, 21 L.Ed.2d 258 (1968).
On May 20, 1964, petitioner returned the blank form, stating that he did not wish to be a conscientious objector. In response to the board's request for information about his claim to be a sole surviving son, petitioner indicated that his father had been killed in World War II. The local board, after consulting the State Director, again wrote petitioner requesting more information about his father. Petitioner supplied some of the information. The local board forwarded this information to the State Director, who requested the local board to reopen petitioner's classification. 4 The board canceled his induction order and reclassified him IVA, the appropriate classification for a registrant exempted as a sole surviving son. Petitioner remained in that classification until February 14, 1966.
We have found no cases discussing this aspect of § 6(o). 6 The applicable Selective Service System Regulation, 32 CFR § 1622.40(a)(10) (1969), merely repeats the language of the statute. The System's administrative interpretations have not been uniform, 7 although i the present case the National Director took the position that 'inasmuch as there is no family, it is not believed that (petitioner) would qualify for sole surviving son status.' We must, therefore, decide what is essentially a question of first impression. Our examination of the language and legislative history of § 6(o) indicates that the Selective Service System's interpretation fails to effectuate fully the purposes Congress had in mind in providing the exemption.
The argument for conditioning the exemption upon the continued existence of a family unit is based not upon the language or structure of the statute but upon certain references in the legislative history. These comments indicate that one purpose of the exemption was to provide 'solace and consolation' to the remaining family members by guaranteeing the presence of the sole surviving son. See S.Rep.No.1119, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1964); Hearings before Subcommittee No. 1 of the House Committee on Armed Services on H.R. 2664, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 34423443 (1963), U.S.Code Cong. & Adm.News, p. 2539. When there is no one left to comfort, it is argued, the sole surviving son may be drafted. However, our examination of the sparse legislative history discloses that Congress had not one but several purposes in mind in providing the exemption, only some of which depend upon the existence of a family unit.
Perhaps chief among these other purposes was a desire to avoid extinguishing the male line of a family through the death in action of the only surviving son. See S.Rep.No. 1119, supra; Hearing before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on H.R. 2664, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 3031 (1963); 110 Cong.Rec. 15218 (1964) (remarks of Senator Keating). Other purposes mentioned were providing financial support for the remaining family members, fairness to the registrant who has lost his father in the service of his country, and the feeling that there is, under normal circumstances, a limit to the sacrifice that one family must make in the service of the country. See Hearing before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on H.R. 2664, supra, at 3031; Hearings before Subcommittee No. 1 of the House Committee on Armed Services on H.R. 2664, supra, at 34423443; 109 Cong.Rec. 24889 (1963).
Perhaps the most that can be said in these circumstances is that Congress had multiple purposes in mind in providing an exemption for a sole surviving son. Depriving petitioner of an exemption might not frustrate one of these purposes, but it certainly would frustrate several of the others. Therefore, given the beneficent basis for § 6(o), we cannot believe that Congress intended to make one factor, the existence of a 'family unit,' crucial. Accordingly, the death of petitioner's mother did not operate to deprive him of his right to be exempt from military service. The local board erred in classifying petitioner IA and ordering him to report for induction.
The Government maintains, however, that petitioner cannot raise the invalidity of his IA classification and subsequent induction order as a defense to a criminal prosecution for refusal to report for induction. According to the Government, petitioner's failure to appeal his reclassification after the death of his mother constitutes a failure to exhaust available administrative remedies and therefore should bar all judicial review. For the reasons set out below, we cannot agree.
The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies is well established in the jurisprudence of administrative law. See generally 3 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 20.01 et seq. (1958 ed., 1965 Supp.); L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 424458 (1965). The doctrine provides 'that no one is entitled to judicial relief for a supposed or threatened injury until the prescribed administrative remedy has been exhausted.' Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41, 50 51, 58 S.Ct. 459, 463, 82 L.Ed. 638 (1938). The doctrine is applied in a number of different situations and is, like most judicial doctrines, subject to numerous exceptions. 9 Application of the doctrine to specific cases requires an understanding of its purposes and of the particular administrative scheme involved.
Closely related to the above reasons is a notion peculiar to administrative law. The administrative agency is created as a separate entity and invested with certain powers and duties. The courts ordinarily should not interfere with an agency until it has completed its action, or else has clearly exceeded its jurisdiction. As Professor Jaffe puts it, '(t)he exhaustion doctrine is, therefore, an expression of executive and administrative autonomy.' 10 This reason is particularly pertinent where the function of the agency and the particular decision sog ht to be reviewed involve exercise of discretionary powers granted the agency by Congress, or require application of special expertise.
In Selective Service cases, the exhaustion doctrine must be tailored to fit the peculiarities of the administrative system Congress has created. At the heart of the Selective Service System are the local boards, which are charged in the first instance with registering and classifying those subject to the Selective Service laws. 32 CFR § 1613.1 et seq., §§ 1621.11623.10 (1969). Upon being classified by the local board, the registrant has a right of appeal to a state appeal board, 32 CFR § 1626.2 (1969), and, in some instances, to the President, 32 CFR § 1627.3 (1969). No registrant is required to appeal. 11 A registrant cannot be ordered to report for induction while his classification is being considered by the local board or by an appeal board. 32 CFR §§ 1624.3, 1625.14, 1626.41, 1627.8 (1969).
This case raises a different question. We are not here faced with a premature resort to the courtsall administrative remedies are now closed to petitioner. We are asked instead to hold that petitioner's failure to utilize a particular administrative processan appealbars him from defending a criminal prosecution on grounds which could have been raised on that appeal. We cannot agree that application of the exhaustion doctrine would be proper in the circumstances of the present case.
First of all, it is well to remember that use of the exhaustion doctrine in criminal cases can be exceedingly harsh. The defendant is often stripped of his only defense; he must go to jail without having any judicial review of an assertedly invalid order. The deprivation of judicial review occurs not when the affected person is affirmatively asking for assistance from the courts but when the Government is attempting to impose criminal sanctions on him. Such a result should not be tolerated unless the interests underlying the exhaustion rule clearly outweigh the severe burden imposed upon the registrant if he is denied judicial review. 13 The statute as it stood when petitioner was reclassified said nothing which would require registrants to raise all their claims before the appeal boards. 14 We must ask, then, whether there is in this case a governmental interest compelling enough to outweigh the severe burden placed on petitioner. Even if there is no such compelling interest when petitioner's case is viewed in isolation, we must also ask whether allowing all similarly situated registrants to bypass administrative appeal procedures would seriously impair the Selective Service System's ability to perform its functions.
We think there are several answers to his argument. First, as we said above, we doubt very much whether very many registrants would pass up the chance to escape service by reason of physical or mental defects and leap immediately at the chance to defend a criminal prosecution. But more importantly, a registrant is under a duty to comply with the order to report for a physical examination 21 and may be criminally prosecuted for failure to comply. 22 If the Government deems it important enough to the smooth functioning of the System to have unfit registrants weeded out at the earliest possible moment, it can enforce the duty to report for pre-induction examinations by criminal sanctions. In the present case, it has not chosen to do so. Petitioner has not been prosecuted for failure to report for his examination; he has been prosecuted for failure to report for induction, a duty he claims he did not have. Therefore, we hold that petitioner's failure to report for his examination should not bar hm from challenging the validity of his classification as a defense to his criminal prosecution.
The truth of the matter is that it was the Selective Service Board that acted in a 'lawless' manner; * and when its error is so egregious, it would be a travesty of justice to require a registrantwhether or not sophisticatedto pursue the administrative remedies that are designed for quite different categories of cases.
It is petitioner's failure to exhaust appellate remedies available within the Selective Service System which presents the obstacle to the challenge of his classification in the courts. And while this facet of the exhaustion doctrine, like its other facets, admits of exceptions when special circumstances warrant, see, e.g., Donato v. United States, 302 F.2d 468 (C.A.9th Cir. 1962), I cannot agree with the Court's conclusion that petitioner's failure to exhaust appellate remedies within the System can be disregarded on the broader ground that only a question of law is involved. Questions of law have not, in the past, been thought to be immune from exhaustion requirements. See, e.g., Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41, 58 S.Ct. 459, 82 L.Ed. 638 (1938). Indeed, this Court has often emphasized that the expertise of the responsible agency is entitled to great deference in matters of statutory construction, 1 see, e.g., Udall v. Tallman, 380 U.S. 1, 16, 85 S.Ct. 792, 801, 13 L.Ed.2d 616 (1965), thus refuting any contention that questions of law are somehow beyond the experts e of the agency and do not give rise to the considerations which underlie the exhaustion doctrine.
Although I would stop far short of the broad strokes used by the Court in this respect, I do agree that petitioner's failure to exhaust appellate remedies does not bar review of his classification on the facts of this case. Undoubtedly, Congress could require such exhaustion as a prerequisite to judicial review, see, e.g., Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 64 S.Ct. 660, 88 L.Ed. 834 (1944), but Congress has not chosen to do so. 2 In the absence of any such requirement, I do not think review of petitioner's classification is an impermissible encroachment upon the bailiwick of the Selective Service System. We are not faced with a situation in which consideration of the issue involved has stopped at the first level of the administrative machinery. Rather, petitioner's case and the scope of the § 6(o) exemption for sole surviving sons have received the attention of both the State and the National Directors of the Selective Service System. Petitioner has not exhausted the channels for formal appellate review within the System, but the informal review given petitioner's case and the ratification by the State and National Directors of the position taken by petitioner's local board are sufficient justification to permit the courts to entertain petitioner's defense that his classification is improper under § 6(o).
See, e.g., Layton & Fine, The Draft and Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies, 56 Geo.L.J. 315, 322331 (1967).
The 1967 amendment, see n. 12, supra makes no reference to exhaustion of administrative remedies as a prerequisite to challenging the validity of a classification as a defense to a criminal prosecution for refusal to submit to induction. The legislative history of that amendment indicates that Congress was concerned with certain judicial decisions allowing pre-induction review of selective service classifications and the possibility that such 'litigious interruption' might seriously affect the administration of the Selective Service System. See Oestereich v. Selective Service System Local Board No. 11, 393 U.S. 233, 245 252, 89 S.Ct. 414, 420424, 21 L.Ed.2d 402 (1968) (dissenting opinion).
It is true that we recently made specific reference to the exhaustion doctrine in Oestereich v. Selective Service System Local Board No. 11, 393 U.S. 233, 235236, n. 5, 89 S.Ct. 414, 415 416, 21 L.Ed.2d 402 (1968), a case where all administrative appeals had been exhausted. However, that case involved an attempt to challenge the validity of a classification before receipt of a notice of induction. A registrant's failure to appeal may have different implications if raised in a suit for pre-induction review.
See Billings v. Truesdell, 321 U.S. 542, 558, 64 S.Ct. 737, 746, 88 L.Ed. 917 (1944); Gibson v. United States, 329 U.S. 338, 349350, 67 S.Ct. 301, 306307, 91 L.Ed. 331 (1946); Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 176, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 1589, 91 L.Ed. 1982 (1947); Cox v. United States, 332 U.S. 442, 445, 448, 68 S.Ct. 115, 116, 117, 92 L.Ed. 59 (1947).
The fact that the relevant statute is ambiguous or uncertain, e.g., Logan v. Davis, 233 U.S. 613, 627, 34 S.Ct. 685, 690, 58 L.Ed. 1121 (1914), or that the agency's interpretation of a statute comes while its interrelationship with the other parts of the regulatory scheme is as yet 'untried and new,' Norwegian Nitrogen Prods. Co. v. United States, 288 U.S. 294, 315, 53 S.Ct. 350, 358, 77 L.Ed. 796 (1933), may accord the agency interpretation of the statute additional significance. And since the construction of the sole surviving son exemption is 'essentially a question of first impression,' ante, at 190, the importance of exhaustionor of a failure to exhaustis, perhaps, accentuated in this case. Any ambiguity in the language and legislative history of the statute, or any question as to the role which § 6(o) must play in the statutory scheme would be well suited to resolution by the Selective Service System in the first instance. Exhaustion of appellate remedies within the System would have afforded that agency full opportunity to apply its expertise to these and other questions, thereby facilitating the disclosure of factors which, although germane, are not highly visible to tribunals less familiar with the regulatory scheme.
Compare Falbo v. United States, 320 U.S. 549, 64 S.Ct. 346, 88 L.Ed. 305 (1944). Section 10(b)(3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 104, prescribes the timing of judicial review'after the registrant has responded either affirmatively or negatively to an order to report for induction' but does not speak to the exhaustion question.
It should be noted that where agency orders are not suspended during the pendency of an administrative appeal, Congress has seen fit to permit judicial review without exhaustion of appellate remedies. Administrative Procedure Act § 10(c), 5 U.S.C. 704 (1964 ed., Supp. III). Under that section, however, if the agency action is inoperative during administrative review, the agency may require exhaustion by its own rules. Since induction may not be ordered during a registrant's appeal, 32 CFR §§ 1626.41, 1627.8 (1969), the Selective Service System could require exhaustion even if subject to § 10(c) of the APA. The administration of the draft laws, however, is not covered by the APA, and the necessity for exhausting appellate remedies would seem to rest on the general doctrine developed by the courts.
UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. Jose MENDOZA-LOPEZ and Angel Landeros-Quinones.
UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. Lori Rabin WILLIAMS.
Jean CHRISTIAN and Victor L. Green, Appellants, v. NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT, et al.
Vincent Francis McGEE, Jr., Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES.
David Earl GUTKNECHT, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES.

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