Court Opinion

ID: 9425456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:45.930528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.669397
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
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 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.” Ibid. I dissented in Ehlert, arguing that under the regulations of the Selective Service System the local boards should consider the claim as arising from a circumstance over which *41the registrant has no control, and that civilian rather than military adjudication of these claims should be preferred. Id., at 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.”
in these cases received a full administrative review of the conscientious objector claims presented to his local board. But in each case the board purported to look into the claim. In Musser’s case the board made an explicit finding that his beliefs were not “sincere” — a finding which one judge below found to be without basis. In Waldron’s case no explicit finding on the merits was made, yet the board postponed his induction and interviewed him after the State Director recommended this course following his review of Waldron’s file. Waldron’s claim was not specifically denied as untimely. Thus in each case it would appear that either explicitly or implicitly some evaluation of the merits of the CO claim was made. But because the claims were considered late, neither petitioner was afforded the normal administrative appeal rights.1 Such result can be justified under Ehlert only if these claims are to receive full de novo consideration by the military. challenging assurances that their claims will receive such consideration, the petitioners point to ¶[ 3.b (2) Army Regulation 635-20, which was not considered Ehlert. It provides that “[rjequests for discharge after entering military service will not be favorably considered when . . . (2) [b]ased solely on conscientious *42objection claimed and denied by the Selective Service System prior to induction.”
The issue, then, is 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.
The majority emphasizes these cases the local boards were without authority to reopen the classifications and consider the claims on the merits. That is, of course, now the law. But while this rule effectively forecloses registrants from the procedural rights within the Selective Service System that a reopening would afford, it cannot guarantee that the Army will afford the registrant a full hearing on his claims. That will depend upon the Army’s application of its own regulations to these facts.2
*43Indeed, 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.