Court Opinion

ID: 9419337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:48:54.260505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:05.020704
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Jackson,
dissenting:
Bowles was indicted for failing to respond to an order for induction into the Army. He sought to show that the order of induction was invalid because his classification had been made under a wrong interpretation of the law. He had a letter from the Board of Appeal, a part of which showed that at one time and in one aspect the Board clearly misapprehended the law applicable to his case. He sought to inspect his Selective Service file, as he had a right to do. This file would show when and how, if ever, his case was considered under a proper understanding of the law. The prosecutor refused to produce the file and kept it out of evidence. Bowles was convicted.
Bowles asks us to review the trial court’s ruling that even if he was wrongly classified through mistake of law it is no defense to the indictment. The Government succeeds in persuading us to refuse to entertain this question, by printing in its brief a copy of a decision by General Hershey, acting for the President, denying petitioner’s appeal. No question has been raised as to the authenticity of this copy, and I raise none. But the facts remain *37that, for some reason, the prosecution denied Bowles the right to inspect his Selective Service file and kept it out of evidence. What the file may reveal I do not know. I strongly suspect he will be no better off for seeing it. Yet the prosecuting attorneys presumably knew what was in the file and they withheld it from him. My experience indicates that it would be more reasonable to assume that they illegally suppressed the file to help their case than to assume such behavior was purposeless. I see no reason why the strong inferences that usually arise from suppression, destruction, or failure to produce evidence in control of a litigating party should not apply here. I am confident that counsel handling this case in this Court not only would not suppress, but would disclose to us, any relevant part of this file, whether it helped or hurt their case. But confidence in counsel founded on personal knowledge is not a safe basis for establishing a practice.
Bowles was forced to try his case in the dark, being refused information to which he was entitled. It is true that he did not assign this as grounds for certiorari. But it is not Bowles who is here trying to use the information contained in the file. The citizen, of necessity, has few rights when he faces the war machine. One of them is the right to know what happened to him and why, as shown by his Selective Service file, even if he is not able to do anything about it.
The ultimate question raised by Bowles is whether one indicted for failing to submit to an induction order may defend by showing that the order is invalid. The Court considers the parts of the file now tendered by the Government and accepts the Government’s suggestion that “the record does not properly present the question whether petitioner was entitled to contest the validity of his order to report for induction.” The Court does not consider whether one may be convicted for disobeying an invalid *38order; and I do not care to express a final opinion on the subject, since the disposition of the matter by the Court precludes its determination of the question. But I would not readily assume that, whatever may be the other consequences of refusal to report for induction, courts must convict and punish one for disobedience of an unlawful order by whomsoever made.
If we are to consider the decision of the case by General Hershey and assume that the file contains nothing else helpful to the defendant, I agree with the Court’s conclusion that Bowles is defenseless. But where the prosecution has illegally closed to the defendant files to which he was entitled, I do not think we should allow it to supplement the record here for the purpose of precluding decision of questions which, even if doubtful, Bowles seems entitled to raise if he can establish that the order of induction was illegal. To let the Government foreclose the question by producing records here which if ever relevant should have been examined in the court below seems to let the prosecution eat its cake and have it too.
Mr. Justice Reed joins in this opinion.