Court Opinion

ID: 9421000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:56:37.936194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:28.135383
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Jackson,
whom Mr. Justice Burton and Mr. Justice Minton join,
dissenting.
This Court held in Estep v. United States, 327 U. S. 114, that in a criminal prosecution under § 11 of the Selective Service Act the court must allow the registrant to prove that his local draft board acted without jurisdiction in classifying him for service. The Court cited several examples of a board acting without jurisdiction, such as where a Pennsylvania board orders a citizen and resident of Oregon to report for induction, or where a board bases classification on the registrant’s color or creed in direct defiance of the applicable regulations. But the Court then made this statement: “The question of jurisdiction of the local board is reached only if there is no basis in fact for the classification which it gave the registrant.” (Emphasis added.) The import was that a local board loses jurisdiction if there are insufficient facts in the record to support its conclusion. The ramifications of such a theory were not explored at the time and have not *398been clarified by subsequent decisions.1 But the majority opinion today squarely poses the question of whether such a theory has a place in the statutory scheme of the Selective Service Act.
When he registered for service in September 1948, petitioner was 18 years old and claimed to have been a minister of religion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses for some 15 months. He had not been ordained. He had been trained as a radio engineer, still supported himself by doing radio repair work at night, and worked at this job about 40 hours a week. He conducted two religious meetings a week, each lasting an hour, and he occasionally spoke at other meetings. He also made house-to-house calls. He had prepared for the ministry, he said, by reading the Bible and other texts published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and by taking a course. After he filed his classification questionnaire, petitioner gave up his radio repair work and was ordained by baptism. He was purportedly in charge of missionary work “in a 5,400 square mile section of territory.” These events on the eve of his classification and in view of his youth may have raised doubt as to his good faith. The local board and the Appeals Board, without citing their reasons, placed petitioner in Class I-A.
No allegation has been made that the local board or the Appeals Board acted fraudulently or maliciously in this matter. The only logical assumption from the classification is that the boards disbelieved part of petitioner’s testimony or doubted his good faith in taking up religious work at the particular time he did. The record itself raises some suspicions, and petitioner’s ap*399pearance before the local board may well have confirmed these suspicions.
The problem inherent in Estep and raised by the majority opinion today is, what is required of the board under such circumstances? It will not do for the Court as in Estep to say on the one hand that the board’s action is not subject to “the customary scope of judicial review” and that “the courts are not to weigh the evidence,” and then on the other to strike down a classification because no affirmative evidence supporting the board’s conclusion appears in the record. Under today’s decision, it is not sufficient that the board disbelieve the registrant. The board must find and record affirmative evidence that he has misrepresented his case — evidence which is then put to the test of substantiality by the courts. In short, the board must build a record.
There is nothing in the Act which requires this result.2 To the contrary, the whole tenor of the Act is that the factual question of whether the registrant is entitled to the claimed exemption shall be left entirely in the hands of the board. The philosophy of the Act is that the obligations and privileges of serving in the armed forces should be shared generally, in accordance with a system of selection which is fair and just. 62 Stat. 604, 50 U. S. C. App. §§ 451-471. To that end it decrees “Except as otherwise provided in this title, every male citizen of the United States . . . who is between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six . . . shall be liable for training and *400service in the armed forces . . . .” 62 Stat. 605, 50 U. S. C. App. § 454 (a). . The Act then sets up several deferments and exemptions including that claimed here. It is the usual rule that he who claims the benefit of exceptions in a statute carries the burden of establishing that he is entitled to them. And the decisions of the board on these matters are made “final” by the Act, except where an appeal is authorized. 62 Stat. 620, 50 U. S. C. App. §460 (b)(3).
Even when we all interpret “final” so as to allow judicial review of the board’s jurisdiction, it does not follow that jurisdiction may be lost through a lack of evidence. Despite the comment in Estep that the board’s action is not subject to ordinary review, the Court continues to examine and weigh these purely factual determinations.
Perhaps what bothers the Court is that when no evidence is introduced against a registrant and the board fails to state its reasons for acting, there is no practical way for the trial court to determine whether the correct statutory standard has been applied. We freely admit the difficulty. However, it is one which the Court should face rather than avoid. Since the record in this case would look the same whether the board acted fraudulently, with a misconception of the law, or in good faith, how is the trial court to proceed in determining the board’s jurisdiction? The board, through silence, makes the registrant’s task of proving lack of jurisdiction next to impossible.
We think the Act nevertheless requires that in the absence of affirmative proof by the registrant that the board has misconstrued the law or acted arbitrarily, the board’s decisions are final and not subject to judicial scrutiny. Whether there is sufficient evidence to grant the exemption is to be left wholly with the board. The Court does not sit here to weigh the evidence. All factual questions are for the board, and its decision is final. The Court *401may not set aside the board’s finding because the Court might have reached a different conclusion. If it is said that this puts an awesome power in the hands of the selective service authorities, we can only reply that conscription is an awesome business. Congress must have weighed this fact when it passed the Act. It must also have realized that to allow each registrant who is denied exemption a trial on the facts would be to place an impossible block in the way of conscription.

 Eagles v. United States ex rel. Samuels, 329 U. S. 304, 316-317; Gibson v. United States, 329 U. S. 338; Sunal v. Large, 332 U. S. 174, 176; Cox v. United States, 332 U. S. 442, 448, 451-455.

 The regulations require the local board to place in the registrant’s file for appeal a summary of outside information which was considered by the board. 32 CFR, 1952 Cum. Supp., § 1626.13. We do not interpret this to mean that the board must take the affirmative in securing such information, or that nonevidentiary factors which influenced the board need be summarized, or that in any case these summaries are subject to evaluation by the courts.