Court Opinion

ID: 9460776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:00:10.375154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:46.827998
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The majority holds that the defendant failed to state a prima facie case as a conscientious objector. I cannot agree and must therefore respectfully dissent.
The controlling law in this circuit with regard to the question before us was stated in United States v. Lemmens, 430 F.2d 619, 624 (7th Cir. 1970):
We are persuaded that where the validity of a classification rejecting a claim as conscientious objector is in issue, and where the registrant described a belief which on its face fulfilled the legal requirements, the board did not state its reason for rejection, and the court cannot otherwise determine with any degree of assurance that the decision really made *818by the board properly supported the rejection and had a basis in fact, the court should hold the classification invalid. [Emphasis added].
I would hold that defendant has more than satisfied the requirements for presentment of a prima facie attainment of conscientious objector status. In Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698, 700, 91 S.Ct. 2068, 29 L.Ed.2d 810 (1971), the Supreme Court detailed the three basic requirements which defendant must meet. He must show: (1) that he is conscientiously opposed to war in any form; (2) that his objection is sincere; and (3) that his opposition is based upon religious training and belief. It would appear that defendant has adequately fulfilled the first two requirements. Indeed, the majority’s challenge to the defendant’s claim for conscientious objector status centers solely on the third requirement. In rejecting defendant’s claim the majority says that:
[Defendant’s] statement ... revealed that he relied upon a merely personal moral code based upon essentially philosophical views. These views are not the sort which were considered equivalent to orthodox religious views in United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, [85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733], and Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 [90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308].
I believe the majority misreads the Seeger and Welsh decisions. Here defendant’s opposition to war stemmed not from a religious belief in a supreme deity; rather it emanated from a moral and ethical belief grounded on his longstanding and religious-like convictions and commitment to honor, truth, and human worth. That defendant’s objection to all war was forged from religious beliefs has been more than amplified in the Supreme Court’s decision in Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 339-340, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 1796, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970), where it was stated with respect to religious belief:
The Court made it clear [in Seeger] that these sincere and meaningful beliefs that prompt the registrant’s objection to all wars need not be confined in either source or content to traditional or parochial concepts of religion. It held that § 6 (j) “does not distinguish between externally and internally derived beliefs,” id., at 186, [85 S.Ct., at 864] and also held that “intensely personal” convictions which some might find “incomprehensible” or “incorrect” come within the meaning of “religious belief” in the Act. Id., at 184-185, [85 S.Ct. at 863-864], What is necessary under Seeger for a registrant’s conscientious objection to all war to be “religious” within the meaning of § 6(j) is that this opposition to war stem from the registrant’s moral, ethical, or religious beliefs about what is right and wrong and that these beliefs be held with the strength of traditional religious convictions. Most of the great religions of today and of the past have embodied the idea of a Supreme Being or a Supreme Reality — a God — who communicates to man in some way a consciousness of what is right and should be done, of what is wrong and therefore should be shunned. If an individual deeply and sincerely holds beliefs that are purely ethical or moral in source and content but that nevertheless impose upon him a duty of conscience to refrain from participating in any war at any time, those beliefs certainly occupy in the life of that individual “a place parallel to that filled by . God” in traditionally religious persons. Because his beliefs function as a religion in his life, such an individual is as much entitled to a “religious” conscientious objector exemption under § 6(j) as is someone who derives his conscientious opposition to war from traditional religious convictions.
Applying this standard to Seeger himself, the Court noted the “compulsion to ‘goodness’ ” that shaped his total opposition to war, the undisputed sincerity with which he held his' views, and the fact that Seeger had *819“decried the tremendous ‘spiritual’ price man must pay for his willingness to destroy human life.” 380 U.S., at 186-187, [85 S.Ct. at 864].
The majority holds that the defendant’s opposition to war was nurtured by a mere “personal moral code based upon essentially philosophical views” which consequently excludes him from a conscientious objector exemption. With respect to exclusion from exemption as a conscientious objector due to philosophical or personal views the Supreme Court in Welsh held:
We certainly do not think that § 6(j)’s exclusion of those persons with “essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code” should be read to exclude those who hold strong beliefs about our domestic and foreign affairs or even those whose conscientious objection to participation in all wars is founded to a substantial extent upon considerations of public policy. The two groups of registrants that obviously do fall within these exclusions from the exemption are those whose beliefs are not deeply held and those whose objection to war does not rest at all upon moral, ethical, or religious principle but instead rests solely upon considerations of policy, pragmatism, or expediency. In applying § 6(j)’s . exclusion of those whose views are “essentially political, sociological, or philosophical” or of those who have a “merely personal moral code,” it should be remembered that these exclusions are' definitional and do not therefore retrict the category of persons who are conscientious objectors by “religious training and belief.” Once the Selective Service System has taken the first step and determined under the standards set out here and in Seeger that the registrant is a “religious” conscientious objector, it follows that his views cannot be “essentially political, sociological, or philosophical.” Nor can they be a “merely personal moral code.” See United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S., at 186, [85 S.Ct. at 864],
Welsh stated that he “believed [d] the taking of life — anyone’s life — to be morally wrong.” ... On the basis, of these beliefs and the conclusions of the Court of Appeals that he held them “with the strength of more traditional religious convictions,” 404 F.2d at 1081, we think Welsh was clearly entitled to a conscientious objector exemption. 398 U.S. at 342-343.
In my view defendant’s objection to war was not spawned by “considerations of policy, pragmatism, or expediency.” Accordingly, I would reverse.