Court Opinion

ID: 9460568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:54:48.180825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:41.414115
License: Public Domain

ALBERT V. BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I. I question the proposition laid out immediately and explicitly in the majority opinion as: “The local board’s failure to state the basis of its decision casts such a flaw on administrative review that the omission cannot be remedied by the appeal board’s statement of its reasons for denying the claim”. Forthrightly, too, the opinion concedes that the Supreme Court has not decided the issue.
Reliance is rested by the majority upon inference from the remand of Joseph v. United States, 438 F.2d 1233 (3 Cir. 1973), 405 U.S. 1006, and United States v. Lenhard, 437 F.2d 936 (2 Cir. 1970), 405 U.S. 1013, 92 S.Ct. 1296, 31 L.Ed.2d 477 by the Supreme Court “for consideration” on the Solicitor General’s anatomizing memorandum, which is set out in United States v. Stewart, 478 F.2d 106, 112 (2 Cir. 1973). Also cited is United States v. Broyles, 423 F.2d 1299 (4 Cir. 1970, en banc). Interestingly, unlike the case at bar, in none of these precedents were any reasons given for the appeal board’s decision. Nor did the Solicitor’s memorandum refer to the weight to be accorded the opinion given on the review. Hence I do not feel presumptuous in engaging the majority’s proposition.
To begin, the purpose of the appeal board is seemingly overlooked by the majority; indeed, it is treated as an impotent entity. Its predominant function is, of course, to scan the proceedings of the local boards for illegalities in the classification of registrants. 32 CFR § 1626.23 (1969 Supplement). It is tbie place for complaints of the local board’s actions. Otherwise it would have no reason for being. To this end, the appeal board is empowered to classify or reclassify a registrant. Id. § 1626.26.
This power, in my judgment, authorized the appeal board to correct the local board’s omission of its reasons for the classification of Wainscott by itself classifying him. Particularly is this so under the majority’s view that the omission had the ultimate effect of nullifying the classification by the local board. Further indication of the breadth of the appeal board’s remedial supervision of the first classification is found in § 1626.23, directing appeal boards to check carefully “whether the record is complete” and, if necessary, to return the file to the local board for completion.
But Wainscott protests, and the majority holds, that the omission impairs his appeal right and thus vitiates the local level classification. The argument, first, is that absent reasons the appellant cannot counter the local’s decision —that the right of appeal is then no longer “meaningful” (by now a fatigued adjective). Additionally, it is said that without knowledge of the reasons the appellant cannot exercise the privilege of attaching to his appeal a statement— important because he cannot appear in person — specifying wherein he believes the local board erred.
These assertions, though plausible, are not sound. Wainscott had intimately known all the material that went before the local board and the questions to be resolved. The entire case is made up of only a brief record, readily carried in mind. He clearly demonstrated he was perfectly capable of prosecuting his claim in that tribunal. Nothing not then known to him could be included by the appeal board in its consideration. It was forbidden by the regulations to go beyond what he had placed or knew was before the local board. Id. § 1626.24. As for his statement, it would necessarily embrace all the assertions he had already put in the record by letters or had said on occasion. He was, of course, altogether aware of his contentions from the very beginning and throughout. What the absence of reasons could *364amount to in imagined circumstances is merely academic. It was an elementary and uncomplex proceeding and only by suppositions can a deprivation of rights or privileges be imposed upon it.
Finally, it is pressed that even if permissibly remedial, the appeal board’s statement of reasons was insufficient. It said:
“This Appeal Board is of the opinion that the Record shows registrant’s beliefs lack sufficient sincerity to constitute the necessary elements of conscientious objection. Attention is invited to conflicts in statement by the registrant in the Record. Accordingly, he is continued in class I-A.”
For me this is a plain, understandable statement. Its entire content is reasons. All reasons embody some conclusions, but the board’s summary cannot be denied legitimacy under the brand of “conclusions”. The suppositions advanced of what basis the board could possibly have used are nothing but imageries. There is no occasion for pondering the board’s ratio decidendi; it speaks for itself. Such surmises are banished by the board’s stark, bold, explicit characterization of Wainscott’s claims. There is no doubt or equivocation about the conflicts. They are obviously comprised of the two outstanding contradictions in the administrative proceedings: The first was that (1) “non-combatant position would not be in opposition to my beliefs — provided that it would be truly non-combatant in every sense” and (2) later that his principles would not permit of non-combatant service. I find no other conflicting “statements”. Certainly the expositions of his religious beliefs, while uncommon, are not inconsistent inter se.
Criticism is directed to the quotations in our first opinion from Witmer v. United States, 348 U.S. 375, 75 S.Ct. 42, 99 L.Ed. 640 (1955), on the destructive impact of conflicting statements upon the sincerity of a registrant’s candidacy for CO classification. The reproof is that the Supreme Court was speaking in a different context. However, its words read impressively on the present circumstances. At all events, they are credibility precepts of the Supreme Court, classic in any situation.
II. As the majority notes, in the original opinion the decision was conditioned on the assumption that Wainscott had tendered a prima facie case and, so assuming, the opinion concluded that the appeal board’s finding that the registrant’s beliefs lack sincerity was sufficient to justify denial of CO classification to him. Inasmuch as the majority now overrules this conclusion, complete consideration of this case requires exploration, as the majority does, of the assumption’s correctness.
Section 6(j) of the Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C.A. App. § 456(j), so far as pertinent here, provides:
“Nothing contained in this title [sections 451, 453, 454, 455, 456 and 458-471 of this Appendix] shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. As used in this subsection, the term ‘religious training and belief’ does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views, or a merely personal moral code ff
In regard to his conscientious objections to war, the majority recalls, Wainscott stated:
“I began thinking along these lines at the age of 13 or 14 when, after studying and discussing various religious aspects, I reasoned that man — not a supreme being — controls his own actions. Thus it was apparent that with no god and no fate, man must himself maintain peace, and to do so he must not destroy any fellow man. Any action against another human being endangers any hope for peace and is *365’ (Accent therefore unpardonable/ added.)
In his interview with the board, he said “that he had no strong religious background and that he thought religion was just a code of ethics — he stated that he did not believe that there was a Supreme Being — and in order to prevent chaos that you should treat people as you wanted them to treat you — he stated that the worse thing to do to start chaos was killing — and that he couldn’t conceive of killing”.
Obviously, he did not hold any “religious conviction” as that phrase is traditionally used. The next inquiry is whether he claimed CO status on moral or ethical beliefs equivalent, for him, of a religion — a tenet of faith as strong as the guide of deity-worship in others. This equation is accepted in Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970), but that is not the present registrant’s basic and dominant manifestation. His overriding motivation is the desire for peace. True, he believes that “to harm or destroy any human being” is “morally unpardonable and impossible” for him. This creed rests, he avers, on the wish to help another human being.
His thesis is not an inward personal peace but, rather, public tranquility. Incidentally, in this connection, to repeat, at first he averred he would accept non-combatant service as not offending his beliefs — later he explained he meant by that no service at all. In my view his objection “rests solely upon considerations of policy” which is not a basis for exemption. Welsh, supra, at 342-343, 90 S.Ct. at 1798. Consequently, I do not think he made out a prima facie case before the local board.
I would affirm the conviction.
WIDENER, Circuit Judge, joins in this dissent.