Court Opinion

ID: 9456970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:08:18.863584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:10.036944
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING
KOELSCH, Circuit Judge.
I concur in the result with respect to appellants Warner and Bridges, but I cannot join in affirming the judgment against Jones.
And, if substantial proof of actual misconduct was a necessary predicate for the post commanders’ orders summarily barring Warner and Bridges from the military bases, then I would wholly disagree with my brothers. Unlike them, I do not believe that on this record we can attribute to Warner and Bridges many of the misdeeds and much of the mischief so forcibly emphasized by the opinion. The “proof” on that score consisted largely of hearsay, surmise and conclusory statements completely bereft of factual predicates.
But, as I read Cafeteria Workers, [Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers, etc. v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961)] judicial interference with a military commander’s orders involving the exercise of discretion is largely confined to those rare instances where such orders are utterly incapable of being rationalized on any conceivably valid basis. The orders in the instant case, even though the result of gossip and unconfirmed rumor and although they extend to “men of the cloth” are not, in my opinion, within that category.