Court Opinion

ID: 9461637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:20:11.265019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:10.998822
License: Public Domain

WEIGEL, District Judge
(dissenting). I dissent.
*392Under the majority opinion, appellant is left to stand convicted for actions which are not a crime and for which he was not indicted.
Appellant’s conviction was for knowing failure to keep his local draft board advised of the address where mail would reach him during the period of June 26, 1972, to August 11, 1972. The failure was charged to be in violation of 50 U.S.C. App. § 462 and 32 C.F.R. § 1641.3 (revised as of July 1, 1973 and renumbered 32 C.F.R. § 1641.1(a)(1). Neither the evidence nor the trial court’s own findings establish that appellant was guilty of any such failure. Indeed, the evidence and those findings demonstrate the absence of proof establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I agree that there is ample evidence to support a finding that appellant failed to keep his local board advised of changes in his home address during the period of June 26, 1972, to August 11, 1972. However, this failure does not suffice to support the conviction under 32 C.F.R. § 1641.3, because it is uncontroverted that appellant did furnish the board with his grandmother’s address as that where mail would reach him. The furnishing of such an address — not advice of changes in home address — is what is required.
The relevant law is made by the decision in United States v. Chudy, 474 F.2d 1069 (9th Cir. 1973), which, reversing a conviction under 32 C.F.R. § 1641.3, stated:
The failure to furnish the draft board with a home address does not constitute a violation of the regulation with which the appellant was charged. United States v. Munns, 457 F.2d 271 (9th Cir. 1972). A registrant is not required to report his every move to the board. He is required to provide a suitable means for being reached by the board. Bartchy v. United States, 319 U.S. 484, 63 S.Ct. 1206, 87 L.Ed. 1534 (1943); United States v. Ebey, 424 F.2d 376 (10th Cir. 1970). (474 F.2d at 1070.)
There is not a scrap of evidence to show that the address of his grandmother in Georgia, as furnished by appellant, was not a suitable means for his being reached by the board which, for reasons never clarified in the record, elected to send only one communication to that address. That communication, seeking information as to appellant’s whereabouts, was mailed on August 3, 1972. It resulted not only in the appellant’s mother calling the board on August 14, 1972, but in appellant’s being advised of it.1 The able trial court so found.
The defendant knew people were looking for him and he never ever surfaced. He never contacted the Selective Service, even though he had that information from his mother. . (R.T. 89.)
Thus, the uncontradicted evidence and the trial court’s own findings demonstrate that the board’s communication, sent to the person appellant listed as someone who would always know his address, did in fact reach him. This is all that is required to warrant a reversal. United States v. Chudy, supra.2
*393In addition to informing appellant that his draft board was looking for him, his mother telephoned the board. The majority opinion makes much of the undisputed right of the trial court to resolve a conflict between what the mother testified she told the board (e. g., her lack of knowledge as to why the board was looking for her son) and the records of that body. Of course, that resolution was within the province of the trial judge. The relevant point, apparently disregarded by the majority, is this: Regardless of what the mother may or may not have said, it is undisputed that the board’s communication sent to the address provided by appellant did come to his attention.
The situation here is readily distinguishable from that in United States v. Read, 465 F.2d 1118 (9th Cir. 1972). There the letter sent by the draft board to the person the registrant had listed as someone who would always know his address was returned marked “Address unknown”.
It is apparent from its findings that the trial court actually convicted appellant for his “failure” to call his local board in order to ascertain why they were looking for him during an indefinite period after August 11, 1972. However, blameworthy that failure may have been, it was not the charge against, defendant and was not, in itself, any violation of any law. Appellant was charged with failing to provide a suitable mailing address, not with failing to call his board. No order to report was sent to appellant’s grandmother’s address. Had the board sent such an order to that address and had that order been disregarded by appellant, the case would be very different.
Appellant’s conduct - does appear to have been less than forthcoming and, therefore, to justify disapproval. Still, the day has not come — and I trust it never will — when a court’s disapproval may properly be substituted for solid evidence requisite to conviction for a crime charged. The majority opinion, I am forced most reluctantly to conclude, recites a scattergun assortment of irrelevant facts as the basis for affirmance. It fails to come to grips with those which are controlling, relevant, and un-contradicted. And, if it prevails, it results in a most disturbing denial of the most elemental rights which should protect appellant against conviction for a crime he did not commit.
' The conviction should be reversed.

. Appellant’s mother testified she called the board on August 14, 1972. (R.T. 61-62.) The board’s secretary testified that the call was made three days earlier. (R.T. 23.)

. The majority opinion asserts (at p. 391, n. 1) that Chudy is not in point because the court in that case relied upon 32 C.F.R. § 1642.41(b), which was revoked prior to the events in the present case.
It is true that that particular Section was so revoked. It is also irrelevant.
The only section applicable to both cases is 32 C.F.R. § 1641.3. It is this Section alone which bottomed the charge in both and upon which conviction was based in both.
Chudy reversed the conviction in that case because there, as here, the registrant did furnish an address where mail would reach him. The same result should be reached here for the same reason.
The Chudy court cited § 1642.41(b), which imposed duties upon draft boards, as the basis for criticizing the failure of the draft board in that case to send mail to the address given by the registrant pursuant to § 1641.3. In the case at bar, there was no such failure. Even if § 1642.41(b) had still been in effect, it could have made no difference.