United States v. Price

• Decision Date: 14 November 1972
• Docket Number: No. G-141-71 Cr.,G-141-71 Cr.
• Citation: 351 F. Supp. 1045
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. David Russell PRICE, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

351 F. Supp. 1045

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. David Russell PRICE, Defendant.

No. G-141-71 Cr.

United States District Court, W. D. Michigan, S. D.

November 14, 1972.

John Milanowski, Asst. Atty. Gen., Grand Rapids, Mich., for plaintiff.

Kenneth S. Jacobs, Villa Park, Ill., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

FOX, Chief Judge.

Defendant in this criminal action, David Russell Price, is charged by indictment with failure to perform civilian alternative service as a conscientious objector, in violation of 50 App. United States Code, Section 462. Presently before the court is defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment.

On November 12, 1968, David Price was classified 2-S by his local board as a full time student. The following summer the board wrote to Mr. Price inquiring whether he would again be a student during the impending school year. In response, Mr. Price did not attempt to establish continued student status, but did return a letter requesting a IV-D ministerial exemption. In this letter, he explained that he had been studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses during the past year and expected to be ordained shortly as a minister of that faith. He further stated that he spent approximately 70 hours per month in religious activities plus additional time in study. He promised to submit supporting affidavits, but never did, except for one letter from a Mr. Kenneth Woodward which included no reference to ministerial activity.

Thereafter, on October 21, 1969, defendant was reclassified 1-A. Defendant appealed on November 3, 1969, again asserting that the ministry was his "main occupation." He was granted a personal appearance before the local board on December 2, 1969, and was again classified 1-A. On December 18, 1969, Mr. Price sought further appeal and was mailed an SSS Form 150 (application for conscientious objector). In his letter of December 18, defendant elaborated on his claim to a ministerial exemption. He restated the Biblical support for his religious beliefs and explained that he spent five hours per week at congregational meetings, four hours per week in a door-to-door ministry and fourteen to twenty-one hours per week in personal study. He indicated that he occasionally served as a Vacation Pioneer, not a Regular Pioneer, "whenever my job allows." His reference was to his secular employment as a custodian, which, by his own statement, involved a full 40 hour per week commitment.

On January 15, following the board's receipt of defendant's completed Form 150, reopening was denied. Later, however, on February 13, 1970, defendant was reclassified 1-O. Subsequent appeals failed to alter that status, and defendant was ordered to report for civilian work duty on October 19, 1970. The instant indictment followed.

By his motion to dismiss, defendant argues that since the board never stated reasons for its refusal to grant a IV-D classification, judicial review is impossible and the indictment must therefore be overturned. The government responds that in this case no statement of reasons was necessary, since defendant failed to ever present the board with a prima facie claim for exemption.

The "statement of reasons" rule has found expression in this circuit in the landmark case of United States v. O'Bryan, 450 F.2d 365 (6th Cir. 1971). In that case, the court reviewed the nature and limited scope of judicial inquiry in selective service cases. Estep v. United States, 327 U.S. 114, 66 S.Ct. 423, 90 L.Ed. 567 (1946). The court then proceeded to carefully analyze what the "basis in fact" test laid down in Estep required of a reviewing court.

"The `basis in fact' test actually involves two steps. At the threshold, the reviewing court must determine, on the basis of the registrant's submitted . . . material, whether the registrant has made out a prima facie case . . . .

Where it is clear that a prima facie case was established, we conclude that in conscientious objector cases, it is essential to the validity of an order to report that the board state its basis of decision and the reasons therefor . . . ." United States v. O'Bryan, supra, 450 F.2d at 368, 371.

The basis of the O'Bryan decision is that since a court is not supposed to weigh factual matter in a selective service file, it cannot intelligently review the record to perform the "basis in fact" test without a statement of reasons from the board to use as a point of reference. In other words, the court cannot weigh one fact against another, so it must compare the facts of record with the reason given by the board in explanation of its factual determination in order to ascertain whether the board committed a mistake of law or in some other way exceeded its jurisdiction in acting as it did. It is this jurisdictional question which the Supreme Court identified in Estep, supra, as the sole justification for judicial review.

Having thus understood the basis of the statement of reasons requirement set forth in O'Bryan, it becomes clear why the court in that case made the establishment of a prima facie claim a prerequisite to the board's obligation to record reasons for its action. Once a prima facie claim is made, the requested classification must be granted unless countervailing evidence mitigates against the claimant. Hence, the denial of a requested classification following the filing of a prima facie claim necessarily involves the kind of factual weighing and deliberation which the board alone is empowered to do and which triggers the court's need for an explanation of the board's decision. In contrast, however, when a court is asked to review a record to determine whether a registrant successfully made a prima facie claim in the first instance, no evaluation or weighing of facts is required. The necessary point of reference against which to judge the factual record is provided by law, by the statutory and regulatory conditions for any given classification. Hence, all the court need do to determine whether a prima facie case has been established is assume as true and accurate all allegations and evidence submitted by the registrant and then determine whether the requested classification could be based thereon. No statement by the board that prima facie deficiencies exist is necessary for the court to make this determination. To impose a requirement that the board issue such a statement would, therefore, only unreasonably fetter an already heavily encumbered bureaucratic system.¹

The principle that a local board need not state reasons for denial of a classification unless a registrant has established a prima facie case is not only incorporated in the Sixth Circuit ruling in United States v. O'Bryan, supra, but is also explicitly expressed in two Ninth Circuit decisions involving the IV-D classification. United States v. Pryor, 448 F.2d 1273 (9th Cir. 1971); United States v. Campbell, 439 F.2d 1087 (9th Cir. 1971).

"Since a prima facie case had not been presented, the board was not required to state reasons for denying the IV-D classification." United States v. Pryor, supra, 448 F.2d at 1274.

In support of his argument that the failure of the board to give reasons for its refusal to grant him a IV-D exemption renders the indictment defective, defendant raises this court's decision in United States v. Beckham, 330 F.Supp. 1099 (W.D.Mich.1971), as well as the case upon which Beckham principally relied, Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698, 91 S.Ct. 2068, 29 L.Ed.2d 810 (1971). These cases, however, and the principles controlling their decision, differ fundamentally from the case at bar. Where strong affirmative indications appear on the face of a selective service record that a mistake of law has produced the board's factual decision, Clay and Beckham stand for the proposition that a specific statement of sound reasons must accompany that decision, if it is to be upheld.

In Clay, two of three items of advice given to the board by the Justice Department were concededly erroneous as a matter of law. Since neither the local nor the appeal board identified a sound basis of its...