Court Opinion

ID: 9481834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:33:12.230996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:36.371695
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Chief Judge,
(concurring).
I am writing separately to underscore two key legal considerations that influence our result. First, we concede, as the Supreme Court has emphasized, that the military authorities, not the courts, are to make determinations of credibility. If Dr. Hager’s “demeanor appeared shifty or evasive or ... his appearance was one of unreliability,” the military might have found that he was insincere. Witmer v. United States, 348 U.S. 375, 382, 75 S.Ct. 392, 396, 99 L.Ed. 428 (1955). But, that is not what the military found here. Rather, Major Pronchick said that he did “not question Captain Hager’s sincerity,” and he said Dr. Hager’s demeanor was “entirely appropriate.” The Chaplain’s report read as a whole makes clear that the Chaplain did not find that Dr. Hager was insincere in his statement of his beliefs, but, rather, thought that Dr. Hager’s beliefs were not sufficiently “deep” or “profound.” Thus, we cannot simply reject Dr. Hager’s claim on the ground that the military found him insincere.
Second, the Supreme Court has also said that “when the uncontroverted evidence supporting” a conscientious objector “claim puts [the applicant] prima facie within the ... exemption, dismissal of the claim solely on the basis of suspicion and speculation” is not proper. Dickinson v. United States, 346 U.S. 389, 396-97, 74 S.Ct. 152, 157-58, 98 L.Ed. 132 (1953). Here, in addition to the many supporting affidavits and acknowledged factual history, Dr. Hager directly volunteered to pay back to the Air Force its monetary contribution to his education and to perform alternative civil service in place of his military obligation. *1463And, he did so long before the recent conflict in Iraq could have made military duty seem particularly dangerous. The record does not explain how conscientious objector status could possibly work to his advantage were he not a sincere conscientious objector. Of course, he did not ask for that status prior to a call to active duty, but timing, while evidence of insincerity, in and of itself is not a sufficient basis for rejecting a conscientious objector claim. See, e.g., Goldstein v. Middendorf 535 F.2d 1339 (1st Cir.1976); Lobis v. Secretary, 519 F.2d 304 (1st Cir.1975). I can find nothing else in the record that supports the military.
Given the demeanor-related findings of sincerity, and the factual basis in the record supporting Dr. Hager, there is nothing but “suspicion and speculation” to the contrary. We therefore must find in his favor.