Court Opinion

ID: 9637799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:21:09.763186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:00.657286
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The allegations of Catanzaro’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus assert that he is a regularly and duly ordained minister of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Brooklyn, New York, and a member of the religious sect known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. He charges in substance that the selective service tribunals in his case acted arbitrarily and capriciously, without regard to the evidence and contrary to law, and that he was denied a fair hearing. He asserts that he has exhausted his administrative remedies. The court below refused to issue the writ and dismissed the petition.
In affirming that decision, a majority of this court (putting to one side their additional reason that the administrative processes provided by the Selective Training and Service Act have not been completed) hold that a registrant may enjoy the benefits of a writ of habeas corpus only if he has obeyed the order of his local draft board and has placed himself in the custody of the military authorities, thus going one step further than this court went in United States v. Grieme, 3 Cir., 128 F.2d 811. Cf. Drumheller v. Berks County Local Board No. 1, 3 Cir., 130 F.2d 610. Since Catanzaro did not obey the order of his board and report for induction, say the majority, he has made himself liable to the penalties imposed by Section *10311 of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 311, and therefore is not wrongfully deprived of his liberty by his arrest. But I think the majority overlook the fact that the nature and scope of the writ of habeas corpus in the courts of the United States have been greatly enlarged and liberalized. 1 The writ goes to the very heart of the reasons for an individual’s detention and provides a summary means for determining whether the petitioner has been illegally deprived of his liberty without due process of law.
It is clear that a registrant is deprived of his liberty when he is arrested because he fails to report for induction. The restraint is wrongful if the order of the draft board violated by the registrant was invalid, unless it be true that the Selective Training and Service Act provides that the order must be obeyed in any event and under any circumstances. The Act, however, does not so provide. I see a glaring inconsistency in the proposition that the registrant who obeys an invalid order of his draft board and reports for induction may avail himself of the writ as the means of having the order adjudged a nullity, while the registrant who does not obey a similarly invalid order by reporting for induction and in consequence is arrested may not do so. The majority hold that the validity of the action of the draft board may be tested by the writ in the first instance, but not in the second. I think that they do not give an adequate explanation for this distinction. True, in the first instance the writ issued at a point later in time and after the registrant had executed the order of the board. The answer of the majority, as I understand' it, is that the point in time is immaterial and that the important element consists of the fact that because the registrant had not fulfilled the obligations imposed upon him by Section 3, 50 U.S.C.A. App°endix, § 303, he has thereby incurred the penalties imposed by Section 11, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 311; that therefore he was not unlawfully deprived of his liberty.
In other words, the majority make a distinction between the validity of the punitive sanction of the Act when invoked solely by reason of the violation of an induction order and the validity of the induction order itself. The sanction, it is said, is unassailable even though the induction order, the violation of which is the sole basis for its imposition, is a mere nullity. But I think that the indefensible nature of this distinction is demonstrated by the case of a registrant who is within one of the groups exempted from training and service by the provisions of Section 5, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 305, and is ordered none the less to report for induction because his draft board has acted capriciously or arbitrarily or has denied him a fair hearing in respect to his status. Surely it may not then be said that the registrant (who has exhausted his administrative remedies) has incurred the duty of reporting for induction and that if he fails to do so he incurs the penalties imposed by Section 311.
My position may be summed up as follows. There is no section of the Act which provides that everyone must obey any order of a draft board to report for induction. Categories of exempted or deferred *104registrants are set up by Section 5. If the registrant comes within one of these categories and is denied a fair hearing, or if his local board acts capriciously or arbitrarily or contrary to law in determining his status, the registrant (having exercised his administrative remedies to the full) is entitled to the benefits of the writ, if he is arrested for failure to obey the void order requiring him to report for induction.2 In a habeas corpus proceeding the court ought to look through the legalistic distinction which the majority would draw between the registrant’s violation of the Act because of failure to obey the order and his violation of the order itself. The vital and fundamental thing is that the registrant has been deprived of his liberty because and only because of his refusal to obey an order which was wholly void since it was made without due process of law. Under such circumstances the name or nature of the agency or of the officer of the United States who holds him in custody is immaterial.
Nor can I agree with the ruling of the majority that the administrative processes are not completed until, in the language of United States v. Kauten, 2 Cir., 133 F.2d 703, 706, “the Army makes its choice” and accepts the registrant for service after'he has passed his physical examination. The registrant is in the custody of the military authorities from the moment that he has reported for induction, even though those authorities may see fit to reject him subsequently.
I think the writ should issue in the case at bar for, as I have indicated in the first paragraph of this opinion, Catanzaro asserts that he is entitled to the exemption provided by Section 5(d) and that he has been denied a fair hearing.
I am authorized to state that Judge MARIS joins in this dissent.

 In Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 332, 35 S.Ct. 582, 589, 59 L.Ed. 969, the Supreme Court stated on grant of the writ that “* * * the obligation resting upon us, as upon the district court, [is] to look through the form and into the very heart and substance of the matter. * * *” We may contrast with this the broader statement of Mr. Justice Holmes in his dissenting opinion in the same case, Id., 237 U.S. at page 346, 35 S.Ct. at page 595, 59 L.Ed. 969, which we think is now the law; viz., “* * * habeas corpus cuts through all forms and goes to the very tissue of the structure. It comes in from the outside, not in subordination to the proceedings, and although every form may have been preserved, opens the inquiry whether they have been more than an empty shell.” In the recent case of Holiday v. Johnston, 313 U.S. 342, 351, 550, 61 S.Ct. 1015, 1018, 85 L.Ed. 1392, Mr. Justice Roberts stated, “We have recently emphasized the broad and liberal policy * * * respecting the office and use of the writ of ha-beas corpus in the interest of the protection of individual freedom to the end that the very truth and substance of the cause of a person’s detention may be disclosed and justice be done.” See also Waley v. Johnston, 316 U.S. 101,104, 62 S.Ct. 964, 86 L.Ed. 1302; Walker v. Johnston, 312 U.S. 275, 61 S.Ct. 574, 85 L.Ed. 830; Smith v. O’Grady, 312 U.S. 329, 61 S.Ct. 572, 85 L.Ed. 859; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 465-467, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461; and Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 113, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791, 98 A.L.R. 406.

 In making these statements I am not unaware that the courts have held that the registrant is entitled to habeas corpus to test the validity of actions of the draft boards after induction. In respect to the 1863 Draft Act, 12 Stat. 731, see Stingle’s case, In re Stingle, Fed.Cas.No.13,458. In respect.to the Selective Draft Act of 1917, 50 U.S.O.A. Appendix, § 201 et seq., see Arbitman v. Woodside, 4 Cir., 258 F. 441. Under the Act sub judiee, see the decision of this court in United States v. Grieme, 3 Cir., 128 F.2d 811.
It has been held that a review of the actions of a draft board upon issuance of habeas corpus are limited to the issues of whether the boards had jurisdiction of the registrant and had afforded him a fair hearing. See United States v. Kinkead, D.C., 248 F. 141, affirmed by this court, 250 F. 692; Franke v. Murray, 8 Cir., 248 F. 865, L.R.A.1918E, 1015; Shimola v. Local Board No. 42, D.C., 40 F.Supp. 808. It has also been held that a writ of habeas corpus is available to correct a classification made by a draft board and based upon a mistake of law. United States v. Baird, D.C., 39 F.Supp. 411.