Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/414/31/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 16:52:45+00:00

Document:
A local draft board's mere refusal to reopen a registrant's classification following a claim for conscientious objector status made after issuance of an order to report for induction and based on an assertion that the registrant's conscientious objection to war in any form had crystallized after the issuance of the order to report, cannot signify more than a recognition of lack of power to reopen, and cannot be read as a "denial" of the claim on the merits, and thus a bar to in service review, no matter what the board's apparent motivations in refusing to reopen may have been, and notwithstanding an expressed or unexpressed indication of the board's view of the claim. Ehlert v. United States, 402 U. S. 99. Certiorari granted; No. 72-1733, 478 F.2d 1068; and No. 72-6748, 474 F.2d 90, affirmed.
The petitioners in these cases were each convicted for refusing to submit to induction into the Armed Forces, 50 U.S.C.App. § 462(a), and each seeks review of the judgment affirming his conviction upon the sole ground that the order to report for induction was invalid for failure of the local board to reopen his classification pursuant to a request for a conscientious objector classification, see Mulloy v. United States, 398 U. S. 410, 398 U. S. 418 (1970).
"hereby advised [that the board] did not specifically find there has been a change in status resulting from circumstances over which you had no control,"
until March 27, 1969, in order to be able to report for induction in another city where he was then living, and on that date he refused to submit to induction. He was thereafter tried and convicted of refusing to submit to a valid order to report for induction, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 474 F.2d 90 (CA7 1973).
"[a] regulation explicitly providing that no conscientious objector claim could be considered by a local board unless filed before the mailing of an induction notice would . . . be perfectly valid"
"be deprived of a full and fair opportunity to present the merits of their conscientious objector claims for consideration under the same substantive criteria"
because of a finding that an inductee had waived his right to claim such classification, was avoided: claims crystallizing prior to issuance of an order to report must be directed to, and are to be reviewed by, local boards, while claims crystallizing thereafter are to be reviewed only by the Armed Forces after induction. Id. at 402 U. S. 104 n. 7.
Selective Service regulations, however, did not unambiguously create such a system, but left open the possibility that a classification be reopened after issuance of a notice to report if the local board "specifically finds there has been a change in the registrant's status resulting from circumstances over which the registrant had no control." 32 CFR § 1625.2. Prior to Ehlert, the courts of appeals had divided on the question of whether late crystallization of conscientious objector views qualified as such a change. 402 U.S. at 402 U. S. 101 n. 3. In Ehlert, we avoided the "theological" argument of whether, as a matter of law, a claim of late-crystallizing conscientious objection was a change over which "the registrant has no control." Rather, we held that, in view of consistent administrative interpretation by the Government that changes envisaged by Regulation 1625.2 were limited to "objectively identifiable" and "extraneous" circumstances, [Footnote 3] such an interpretation of the regulation would be adopted. Id. at 402 U. S. 105.
that an inductee claiming late-crystallizing conscientious objector status would receive a full and fair opportunity to have his claim heard by Armed Forces personnel. Id. at 402 U. S. 106-107.
"if the Army could have read the draft board's reasonless refusal to reopen as a 'denial,' then [a registrant] might well have been placed in a mutual buck-passing situation where neither the draft board nor the Army would consider his claim on the merits."
ambiguity of the board's refusal to reopen, taken together with current Army regulations, raises the specter of the kind of no-man's land specifically found intolerable in Ehlert.
The petitioners misconstrue the reasoning and effect of our holding in Ehlert. In adopting the Government's interpretation of Regulation 1625.2 that a late crystallization was not a circumstance over which a registrant "had no control," the Court did not hold merely that a local board would be permitted to refuse reopening of a classification in such a situation, [Footnote 5] but that it was without power to reopen under such circumstances. The mandatory language of Regulation 1625.2, that classification "shall not be reopened" unless the proviso is met, requires no less. If a local board is not empowered to reopen the classification, it follows that it is similarly without power to make any ruling on the merits of a registrant's claims, since such a ruling on the merits of a claim can be made only by a reopening, with concomitant rights in the registrant to a personal appearance and an administrative appeal of an adverse decision, see n 2, supra. From this it follows that in no event can a mere refusal to reopen signify more than a recognition of lack of power to do so; it cannot and does not bear any significance as to the merits of a registrant's claim.
as such by the Armed Forces. [Footnote 6] The simple answer to this contention is that no matter what the boards' apparent motivations in refusing to reopen the petitioners' classifications may have been, the boards were simply without power to reopen, and an expressed or unexpressed indication of the boards' views of the claims cannot be deemed a denial of those claims on the merits.
its views as to the sincerity of a registrant's late-crystallizing claims, as in the case of the petitioner Musser, or expresses any other conclusion concerning the merits of his claims, such expressions must be given no effect by the Armed Forces in reviewing an in service conscientious objector request.
MR JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL would grant these petitions and set these cases for oral argument.
* Together with No. 72-6748, Waldron v. United States, on petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
"The local board may reopen and consider anew the classification of a registrant . . . upon the written request of the registrant . . . if such request is accompanied by written information presenting facts not considered when the registrant was classified, which, if true, would justify a change in the registrant's classification; . . . provided . . . the classification of a registrant shall not be reopened after the local board has mailed to such registrant an Order to Report for Induction (SSS Form No. 252) or an Order to Report for Civilian Work and Statement of Employer (SSS Form No. 153) unless the local board first specifically finds there has been a change in the registrant's status resulting from circumstances over which the registrant had no control."
As used in the Selective Service Regulations and in this opinion, the term "reopen" signifies a fresh determination by the local board of the classification to which a registrant belongs. See Regulation 1625.11, 32 CFR § 1625.11. When a case is reopened by a local board, the registrant is automatically accorded the right to a personal appearance before the local board and an administrative appeal of any adverse decision by the board, Regulation 1625.13, 32 CFR § 1625.13, even though a registrant is "reclassified" in the same classification as that in which he had formerly been put. Mulloy v. United States, 398 U. S. 410, 398 U. S. 414-415 (1970).
As examples of the sort of nonvolitional changes that Regulation 1625.2 was intended to allow, the Government has consistently cited, and the Court in Ehlert mentioned, an injury to the registrant or death in his family making him the sole surviving son. 402 U.S. at 402 U. S. 104.
United States v. Alioto, 469 F.2d 722 (CA1 1972); United States v. Ziskowski, 465 F.2d 480 (CA3 1972); United States v. Shomock, 462 F.2d 338 (CA3 1972). See also United States v. Cotton, 346 F.Supp. 691 (SDNY 1972); United States v. Usdin, 6 S.S.L.R.3039 (EDNY 1972).
Although the language of Regulation 1625.2 is permissive in stating that a local board "may" reopen if the prerequisites are met, in Mulloy v. United States, supra, we held that a board must reopen a classification if a prima facie case for a new classification has been made to the board and the timeliness requirements are met. 398 U.S. at 398 U. S. 415-416.
The petitioners in both of the present cases, relying primarily on Miller v. United States, 388 F.2d 973 (CA9 1967), contend that, by considering the merits of the claims for conscientious objector status, the boards effected a "de facto reopening" which was merely clothed as a denial of reopening. In Miller and in the subsequent case of United States v. Aufdenspring, 439 F.2d 388 (CA9 1971), the State Director, acting under since-rescinded Regulation 1625.3, independently ordered a reopening of the registrants' cases, thus circumventing the timeliness proviso contained in Regulation 1625.2 with respect to requests for reopening by registrants. The courts in those cases held that the local boards' refusals to reopen were procedurally impermissible, since, in each case, the refusal was based on a review of the substance of the registrant's claim, and thus was, in fact, a refusal to reclassify without the procedural advantages to the registrant inherent in a reclassification, see n 2, supra.
Those decisions were correctly distinguished by the Courts of Appeals in the present cases. Petitioner Musser's claim for a reopening and reclassification was based solely upon his own request, and thus the timeliness proviso of Regulation 1625.2 fully applied. In Waldron's case, the State Director recommended postponement and an interview in accordance with Local Board Memorandum 41. But the court found that this postponement was effected under the Director's authority given by Regulation 1632.2 to postpone any induction, rather than in the exercise of his authority under Regulation 1625.3 to cause a reopening; further, the court noted that the Director's suggestion of an interview could not, in any event, trigger a reopening under Regulation 1625.3, since the communication was not in writing, as that Regulation specifically required.
"If the appellant had entered the Army in May, 1969, under circumstances where the Selective Service System actually considered and denied his conscientious objector claim on the merits, he would not have been entitled to an in-service determination on the merits of his conscientious objector claim."
"If the appellant had entered the Army in May, 1969, under circumstances where his local draft board merely refused to reopen his classification because his asserted views crystallized subsequent to the receipt of his induction notice, in the view of the Department of the Army personnel responsible for administering the conscientious objector claims of in-service members, he would have been entitled under Army policy to an in-service determination on the merits of his conscientious objector claim."
462 F.2d at 345. (Emphasis added.) Although the letter interpreted and reported policies in effect at the time of Shomock's ordered induction, there appears to have been no significant change of policy at the time of the ordered inductions in these cases.
In Ehlert v. United States, 402 U. S. 99 (1971), the Court decided that the Selective Service System may place special hurdles on conscientious objector claims first raised after a notice of induction has been issued. In allowing the Selective Service to set what it termed reasonable "timeliness" regulations, the Court assumed that the conscientious objector claims not considered by the local board would receive full consideration by the military after induction. Id. at 402 U. S. 107.
"[I]f . . . a situation should arise in which neither the local board nor the military had made available a full opportunity to present a prima facie conscientious objection claim for determination under established criteria, . . . a wholly different case would be presented."
the registrant has no control, and that civilian, rather than military, adjudication of these claims should be preferred. Id. at 402 U. S. 108. But apart from my own views on that question, the decisions affirmed in today's per curiam are highly questionable, since they appear to be that "wholly different case."
objection claimed and denied by the Selective Service System prior to induction."
The issue, then, is whether the actions of petitioners' local boards may constitute, in the Army's view, denial of the CO claim, thus barring its consideration by the Army. On its face the regulation would surely allow this construction. Such a possibility could perhaps have been avoided if the local boards in these cases had explicitly based their actions on the claims' being untimely, as the Board in Ehlert did. But the boards here did not do this, and indeed, in Musser's case, purported rather clearly to reject the claim on the merits. These cases are thus different from the petitioner's in Ehlert. With the local board's actions here, at best ambiguous, we cannot know that the Army will consider the claims.
Indeed; even if we assume that the Army will superficially grant petitioners' claims de novo consideration, we, in fact, have no way of discovering whether, sub silentio, some weight will be accorded the prior proceedings of the draft boards. Yet those proceedings are deserving of no weight whatsoever, since petitioners were foreclosed from the administrative appeal ordinarily allowed.
The opinions summarily affirmed today conflict squarely, as the Solicitor General concedes, with decisions in the First, Second, and Third Circuits. United States v. Alioto, 469 F.2d 722 (CA1 1972); United States v. Jerrold, 480 F.2d 1293 (CA1 1973); United States v. Cotton, 346 F.Supp. 691 (SDNY 1972); United States v. Usdin, 6 S.S.L.R. 3039 (EDNY 1972); United States v. Shomock, 462 F.2d 338 (CA3 1972); United States v. Ziskowski, 465 F.2d 480 (CA3 1972); United States v. Folino, No. 72-1974, CA3 June 29, 1973. At a minimum, we should have set these cases for argument and full briefing.
If the board reopens the file, the registrant has the right after an adverse decision to a personal appearance before the board and appeal. Since here the files were not considered reopened, the petitioners had no such rights. Compare 32 CFR § 1625.4 with 32 CFR § 1625.13.
Unlike Ehlert, in these cases we have no assurances from the Army that the registrants will receive a hearing. The majority refers to a letter from the Army's General Counsel lodged with the Court of Appeals in United States v. Shomock, 462 F.2d 338, 345 n. 17 (CA3 1972). But this letter does no more than distinguish between claims denied by the Selective Service System on the merits and those not considered because the board did not reopen the classification; only the latter will receive a hearing in the Army. But there is no assurance that, in the confused circumstances of these cases, the Army will not consider these claims to have been denied on the merits.

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