Opinion ID: 285525
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The delinquency regulations

Text: 60 With respect to the delinquency regulations in general, the directive states that if evidence of violation of the act and regulations is established, a local board may declare the registrant a delinquent and    process him accordingly. This statement amplifies the provision of the delinquency regulations authorizing draft boards to declare delinquent a registrant who has failed to perform any duty    required of him under the selective service law.    32 C.F.R. § 1642.4 (a) (1968). 37 Appellants attack the delinquency regulations both as written and as authoritatively construed by the directive. Either way, however, their attack prima facie alleges 61 no threat of interference    with [their] rights    beyond that implied by the existence of the law and regulations. 62 United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, 330 U.S. at 91, 67 S.Ct. at 565. 63 We think the alleged chilling effect of these regulations is insufficient to render them justiciable without a more specific threat of enforcement. The delinquency regulations do not themselves regulate expression. What chilling effect they may have derives from the provisions of the selective service law they are applied to enforce, and at least some of these provisions apparently do not in any way inhibit protected expression. 38 If, upon scanning the draft law, we should find a provision that does raise First Amendment problems, the chill attributable to the threat of its enforcement through the delinquency regulations would be barely noticeable beside the frigid blast from the severe criminal penalties attached to the offending provisions. 39 The mere possibility that more prosecutors than draft boards will abstain from enforcement is thin ice on which to rest the kind of chill that hardens general threats into justiciable controversies. 64 We think appellants' complaint against the delinquency regulations lies rather — if at all — against particular provisions of the draft law which threaten First Amendment injury. The added chill of anticipated enforcement through the delinquency regulations would be a factor to be considered in determining the justiciability of a challenge to such a provision. The delinquency portion of the present complaint, however, neither demonstrates a grave chill nor focuses on a narrowly-defined legal question. Accordingly, it does not present a justiciable case or controversy.