Court Opinion

ID: 9419418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:24.593389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:17.986503
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting:
This case presents another aspect of the perplexing problem of reconciling basic principles of justice with mili*556tary needs in wartime. Individual rights have been recognized by our jurisprudence only after long and costly struggles. They should not be struck down by anything less than the gravest necessity. We assent to their temporary suspension only to the extent that they constitute a clear and present danger to the effective prosecution of the war and only as a means of preserving those rights undiminished for ourselves and future generations. Before giving such an assent, therefore, we should be convinced of the existence of a reasonable necessity and be satisfied that the suspension is in accordance with the legislative intention.
The immediate issue is whether the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 must be interpreted so as to deprive alleged violators of the right to a full hearing and of the right to present every reasonable defense. Petitioner, a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, claimed to be a minister exempt from both military training and civilian work under the Act. After exhausting all the administrative remedies and appeals afforded by the Act, he was classified as a conscientious objector (Class IY-E) rather than as a minister (Class IY-D). Petitioner alleges that this classification was contrary to law and was the result of arbitrary action by his local board. On the assumption that these allegations are true, the subsequent order to report for assignment to work of national importance, which he disobeyed, must therefore be considered invalid. Our problem is simply whether petitioner can introduce evidence to that effect as a defense to a criminal prosecution for failure to obey the order.
Common sense and justice dictate that a citizen accused of a crime should have the fullest hearing possible, plus the opportunity to present every reasonable defense. Only an unenlightened jurisprudence condemns an individual without according him those rights. Such a denial is especially oppressive where a full hearing might dis*557close that the administrative action underlying the prosecution is the product of excess wartime emotions. Experience demonstrates that in time of war individual liberties cannot always be entrusted safely to uncontrolled administrative discretion. Illustrative of this proposition is the remark attributed to one of the members of petitioner’s local board to the effect that “I do not have any damned use for Jehovah’s Witnesses.” The presumption against foreclosing the defense of illegal and arbitrary administrative action is therefore strong. Only the clearest statutory language or an unmistakable threat to the. public safety can justify a court in shutting the door to such a defense. Because I am convinced that neither the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 nor the war effort compels the result reached by the majority of this Court, I am forced to dissent.
It is evident that there is no explicit provision in the Act permitting the raising of this particular defense and that the legislative history is silent on the matter. Suffice it to say, however, that nothing in the statute or in its legislative record proscribes this defense or warrants the conviction of petitioner without benefit of a full hearing. Judicial protection of an individual against arbitrary and illegal administrative action does not depend upon the presence or absence of express statutory authorization. The power to administer complete justice and to consider all reasonable pleas and defenses must be presumed in the absence of legislation to the contrary.1
Moreover, the structure of the Act is entirely consistent with judicial review of induction orders in criminal proceedings. As the majority states, the Act is designed “to *558operate as one continuous process for the selection of men for national service,” and it is desirable that this process be free from “litigious interruption.” But we are faced here with a complete and permanent interruption springing not from any affirmative judicial intervention but from a failure to obey an order. A criminal proceeding before a court is therefore inevitable and the only problem is the availability of a particular defense in that proceeding. Hence judicial review at this stage has none of the elements of a “litigious interruption” of the administrative process.
No other barriers to judicial review of the induction order in a criminal proceeding are revealed by the structure of the Act. The “continuous process” of selection is unique, unlike any ordinary administrative proceeding. Normal concepts of administrative law are foreign to this setting. Thus rules preventing judicial review of interlocutory administrative orders and requiring exhaustion of the administrative process have no application here. Those rules are based upon the unnecessary inconvenience -which the administrative agency would suffer if its proceedings were interrupted by premature judicial intervention. But since the administrative process has already come to a final ending, the reason for applying such rules no longer exists. And even if the order in this case were considered interlocutory rather than final, which is highly questionable, judicial review at this point is no less necessary. Criminal punishment for disobedience of an arbitrary and invalid order is objectionable regardless of whether the order be interlocutory or final.
Nor do familiar doctrines of the exclusiveness of statutory remedies have any relevance here. Had Congress created a statutory judicial review procedure prior to or following induction, the failure to take advantage of such a review or the judicial approval of the induction order upon appeal might bar a collateral attack on the order in *559a criminal proceeding. • But Congress has erected no such system of judicial review. Courts are left to their own devices in fashioning whatever review they deem just and necessary.
Thus there is no express or implied barrier to the raising of this defense or to the granting of a full judicial review of induction orders in criminal proceedings. Courts have not hesitated to make such review available in habeas corpus proceedings following induction despite the absence of express statutory authorization. Where, as here, induction will never occur and the habeas corpus procedure is unavailable, judicial review in a criminal proceeding becomes imperative if petitioner is to be given any protection against arbitrary and invalid administrative action.2 It is significant that in analogous situations in the past, although without passing upon the precise issue, we have supplied such a necessary review in criminal proceedings. Cf. Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U. S. 364; Monongahela Bridge Co. v. United States, 216 U. S. 177; McAllister, “Statutory Roads to Review of Federal Administrative Orders,” 28 California L. Rev. 129, 165, 166. See also Fire Department v. Gilmour, 149 N. Y. 453, 44 N. E. 177; People v. McCoy, 125 Ill. 289, 17 N. E. 786.
Finally, the effective prosecution of the war in no way demands that petitioner be denied a full hearing in this case. We are concerned with a speedy and effective *560mobilization of armed forces. But that mobilization is neither impeded nor augmented by the availability of judicial review of local board orders in criminal proceedings. In the rare case where the accused person can prove the arbitrary and illegal nature of the administrative action, the induction order should never have been issued and the armed forces are deprived of no one who should have been inducted. And where the defendant is unable to prove such a defense or where, pursuant to this Court’s opinion, he is forbidden even to assert this defense, the prison rather than the Army or Navy is the recipient of his presence. Thus the military strength of this nation gains naught by the denial of judicial review in this instance.
To say that the availability of such a review would encourage disobedience of induction orders, or that denial of a review would have a deterrent effect, is neither demonstrable nor realistic. There is no evidence that petitioner failed to obey the local board order because of a belief that he could secure a judicial reversal of the order and thus escape the duty to defend his country. Those who seek such a review are invariably those whose conscientious or religious scruples would prevent them from reporting for induction regardless of the availability of this defense. And I am not aware that disobedience has multiplied in the Fourth Circuit, where this defense has been allowed. Baxley v. United States, 134 F. 2d 998; Goff v. United States, 135 F. 2d 610. Moreover, English courts under identical circumstances during the last war unhesitatingly prq,vided-.a full hearing and reviewed orders to report for permanent service. Offord v. Hiscock, 86 L. J. K. B. 941; Hawkes v. Moxey, 86 L. J. K. B. 1530. Yet that did not noticeably impede the efficiency or speed of England’s mustering of an adequate military force.
That an individual should languish in prison for five years without being accorded the opportunity of proving *561that the prosecution was based upon arbitrary and illegal administrative action is not in keeping with the high standards of our judicial system. Especially is this so where neither public necessity nor rule of law or statute leads inexorably to such a harsh result. The law knows no finer hour than when it cuts through formal concepts and transitory emotions to protect unpopular citizens against discrimination and persecution. I can perceive no other course for the law to take in this case.

 Otherwise the absence of clear statutory permission would preclude court review of induction orders in habeas corpus proceedings following actual induction, a result which this Court’s opinion presumably does not intend to infer. Judicial review in such proceedings has become well settled in lower federal courts.

 Judge Robert C. Bell of tbe federal district court in Minnesota, in Ms article “Selective Service and the Courts,” 28 A. B. A. Journal 164,167, states, “The courts are likely to be confronted with the question of what can be presented as a defense by a selectee in a criminal prosecution against him for a violation of the provisions of the Act of 1940. It appears that this question has not been decided. On principle, it would seem that the defendant should be permitted to offer as a defense the same questions that he could present in a habeas corpus proceeding, that is, the question of whether the board had jurisdiction, whether there was a fair hearing, or whether the action of the board was arbitrary or unlawful.”