United States v. Newman, 15430
Decision Date | 28 April 1942 |
Docket Number | 15447.,No. 15430,15430 |
Citation | 44 F. Supp. 817 |
Parties | UNITED STATES v. NEWMAN. SAME v. BUCHANAN. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Illinois |
Arthur Roe, U. S. Atty., of Vandalia, Ill., and Ray Foreman, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Danville, Ill., for the Government.
Horace Gunn, of Danville, Ill., for defendants.
Defendants are charged with refusal to comply with the orders of their respective draft boards. One has been classified as a conscientious objector and directed to serve in a noncombatant camp. He claims that the board should have given him complete exemption as a regularly ordained minister of religion. The other also insists that his board should have classified him as a regularly ordained minister and exempted him from all service. The evidence before the boards was disputed and contradictory. Obviously, on the face of the record, each board had before it substantial evidence to support its findings.
Before I proceed to the ultimate decision I think it well to consider the comparatively recent announcement of the Supreme Court of the United States involving liberty of religious service and of conscience and the place that citizens' conscientious scruples have in our conception of constitutional rights, and other relevant precedents.
In Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 60 S.Ct. 1010, 1012, 84 L.Ed. 1375, 127 A.L.R. 1493, the Court said:
Similar language is to be found in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 25 L. Ed. 244; Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 10 S.Ct. 299, 33 L.Ed. 637; Selective Draft Law Cases (Arver v. United States) 245 U.S. 366, 38 S.Ct. 159, 62 L.Ed. 349, L.R.A. 1918C, 361, Ann.Cas. 1918B, 856; Hamilton v. Regents of University of California, 293 U.S. 245, 55 S.Ct. 197, 79 L.Ed. 343.
In Davis v. Beason, supra 133 U.S. 333, 10 S.Ct. 300, 33 L.Ed. 637, the court, a good many years ago, said: "However free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country, passed with reference to actions regarded by general consent as properly the subjects of punitive legislation."
In Hamilton v. Regents, supra 293 U.S. 245, 55 S.Ct. 204, 79 L.Ed. 343, the court used this language: And the Supreme Court in United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 49 S.Ct. 448, 450, 73 L.Ed. 889, said: "Whatever tends to lessen the willingness of citizens to discharge their duty to bear arms in the country's defense detracts from the strength and safety of the government."
In Hamilton v. Regents, supra, the court commented that:
Justice Cardozo, concurring in that case, pointed out that from the beginning of our history, conscientious objectors have, as a matter of policy on the part of our national legislature, been exempt as an act of grace from military service, but that the exemption, when granted, had previously been coupled with the condition that they supply the army with a substitute or the necessary money to hire one. He concludes his concurring opinion by saying:
These enunciations of principles we must look to as guiding posts, keeping in mind that, as the Supreme Court has announced, the grant of exemption to conscientious objectors is not a matter of constitutional right, but wholly an act of grace upon the part of Congress.
The present Act (50 U.S.C.A. Appendix § 310 et seq.) is quite similar to Section 4 of the Act of 1917 (50 U.S.C.A. Appendix § 204). It provides that local boards shall have power to hear and determine all questions or claims with respect to inclusion for, or exemption or deferment from, training and service of all individuals within their respective jurisdictions and that the decisions of such boards shall be final except where an appeal is authorized. The Act further provides that appeals may be taken to the appeal board, under rules prescribed by the President, and that an appeal may be taken to the President if a question of dependency, or of classification of conscientious objectors in certain cases, is involved. This is set forth in regulations...
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