Court Opinion

ID: 9447648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:40:18.965735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:07.852230
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Circuit Judge.
I dissent.
I fully agree with Judge JERTBERG that we need not reach the second and third grounds originally urged by appellant, and decided adversely to him by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. United States, 364 U.S. 59, 80 S.Ct. 1554, 4 L.Ed. 2d 1569 (decided June 27, 1960). I further fully agree with Judge JERTBERG in his splendid analysis of the record here presented, and his conclusion that the adverse recommendation of the Department of Justice rests on the three grounds he lists at page 563 of 284 F.2d. He then relies on Sicurella v. United States, 1955, 348 U.S. 385, 75 S.Ct. 403, 99 L.Ed. 436 to reverse, and it is there we part company. In Sicurella, the-Supreme Court ruled that because Sicurella was admittedly sincere, although, he was ready to engage in a “theocratic-war” if Jehovah so commanded, he was. still entitled to classification as a conscientious objector, and it was an error at law for the Department of Justice-to classify him otherwise.
But this Kretchet case does not reveal similar facts, or beliefs. In Sicurella,. supra, the draft registrant categorically rejected the use of carnal weapons under any circumstances:
“With reference to the defense of his ministry, his brethren and Kingdom interests, he asserted that ‘we do not arm ourselves or carry carnal weapons * * *. I do not use-weapons of warfare in defense * * * of Kingdom interests * * * ” Id., 348 U.S. at page 389, 75 S.Ct. at page 405.
The Supreme Court in Sicurella rejected the government’s contention therein made, that such a willingness to fight a “theocratic war” was not “opposition to war in any form.” Id., 348 U.S. at page 389, 75 S.Ct. at page 405. Thus, a belief in such “theocratic warfare” does, not exclude one from the statutory exemption for those opposed on religious grounds to participation in “carnal warfare.” But the theocratic warfare of' which the Supreme Court was speaking was a spiritual war “between * * * good and evil where the Jehovah’s Witnesses, if they participate, will do so without carnal weapons.” Id., 348 U.S. at page 391, 75 S.Ct. at page 406.
Kretchet’s refusal here to disavow categorically the use of carnal weapons, of warfare indicates that his concept of *567spiritual warfare is quite different than that which the Supreme Court had in mind in the Sicurella case. And, importantly, it directly raises the very question of sincerity, which existed in Sicurella, supra, and which did not exist in Witmer v. United States, 348 U.S. 375, 75 S.Ct. 392, 99 L.Ed. 428, decided the same day as the Sicurella case. In conscientious objector cases, “the ultimate question * * * is the sincerity of the registrant in objecting, on religious .grounds, to participation in war in any form.” Witmer, supra, 348 U.S. at page 381, 75 S.Ct. at page 396.
Thus I find Witmer rather than Sicur-■ella controlling on the facts of this ease, .and I would affirm.