Weightman v. United States

• Decision Date: 03 April 1944
• Docket Number: No. 3913.,3913.
• Parties: WEIGHTMAN v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

142 F.2d 188 (1944)

WEIGHTMAN v. UNITED STATES.

No. 3913.

Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

April 3, 1944.

Alfred A. Albert, of Boston, Mass., and John Henry Denton, of Bluemont, Va., for appellant.

Alexander Murchie, U. S. Atty., of Concord, N. H., for appellee.

Before MAHONEY and WOODBURY, Circuit Judges, and PETERS, District Judge.

WOODBURY, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment sentencing the defendant to a term of imprisonment after he had been found guilty by a jury of knowingly failing to perform a duty imposed upon him by the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 885, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 301 et seq.

There is no substantial dispute about the facts. The defendant duly registered in accordance with the above Act and, apparently without difficulty, satisfied his local draft board that he was a conscientious objector opposed to both combatant and noncombatant military service. He was accordingly classified in IV-E, that being the classification appropriate for him under Regulation 622.51(a). He passed his physical examination and on June 10, 1942, in response to an order of his local board, he reported for assignment to work of national importance under civilian direction to Civilian Public Service Camp No. 32 situated in the town of Thornton, New Hampshire. Upon arrival he was assigned by the director of the camp to work in the White Mountain National Forest. His work consisted in the selective cutting of trees to improve the stand of timber, the construction of a fire tower on Osceola Mountain, the improvement of fire roads, and other work of like nature, all under the supervision of the United States Forest Service and all in the National Forest named above. On December 16, 1942, the defendant refused to perform any further work of the above nature on the ground that it was not work of national importance. Persisting in his refusal to work, he was indicted, tried by jury, and convicted under § 11 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 311.

He takes this appeal to us on two grounds; first that § 5(g) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 889, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 305(g) which, so far as material here, is quoted in the margin,¹ and the regulations promulgated thereunder, are unconstitutional and void, and, second, that he was denied due process of law by the refusal of the court below to charge the jury that it could consider as a defense the question of whether or not the work to which he was assigned was in fact work of national importance.

It is to be noted at the outset that the defendant does not question the constitutional power of Congress to raise an army by conscription nor does he contend that conscientious objectors have a constitutional right to be excused from military service. He admits that the exemption of the class to which he belongs is by congressional favor. He says in his brief: "The issue raised here relates only to the conscription of the conscientious objector, who is segregated, interned, deprived of his opportunity to earn a livelihood, and deprived of the earnings of his labor. The creation of civilian public service camps has put into existence the slave labor camp, the conscription camp. The validity of this system is all that is here called in question."

The defendant's first contention is that § 5(g) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 provides for an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. He says that it does not establish any standard whereby the President or his duly authorized appointee, the Director of Selective Service, can determine what is or is not "work of national importance", and that it does not authorize what he calls the "internment" of conscientious objectors in "concentration camps". Consequently he argues that the President and the Director of Selective Service in defining "work of national importance" and in setting up a system of civilian public service camps and ordering conscientious objectors confined therein has "usurped the legislative power from Congress contrary to Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution". We do not agree.

It is, of course, clear that Congress cannot delegate the legislative power conferred upon it by the Constitution to the extent of authorizing others to formulate policies, but it does not follow from this that Congress must spell out each legislative policy which it may itself declare in complete detail. It must itself establish general policies but once having done this it may then validly delegate to administrative officials the power to issue regulations legislative in character within the framework of the legislative standards laid down. Avant v. Bowles, Em.App., 139 F.2d 702, 706; see also McKinley v. United States, 249 U.S. 397, 39 S.Ct. 324, 63 L.Ed. 668. The Supreme Court in Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1, 15, 59 S.Ct. 379, 387, 83 L.Ed. 441, recently said: "We have always recognized that legislation must often be adapted to conditions involving details with which it is impracticable for the legislature to deal directly. We have said that — `The Constitution has never been regarded as denying to the Congress the necessary resources of flexibility and practicability, which will enable it to perform its function in laying down policies and establishing standards, while leaving to selected instrumentalities the making of subordinate rules within prescribed limits and the determination of facts to which the policy as declared by the Legislature is to apply. Without capacity to give authorizations of that sort we should have the anomaly of a legislative power which in many circumstances calling for its exertion would be but a futility.' Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, supra, 293 U.S. 388, 421, 55 S.Ct. 241, 79 L.Ed. 446. In such cases `a general provision may be made, and power given to those who are to act under such general provisions, to fill up the details'. Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 43, 6 L.Ed. 253." See also Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U.S. 470, 496, 24 S.Ct. 349, 48 L.Ed. 525; United States v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506, 517, 31 S.Ct. 480, 55 L.Ed. 563; United States v. Shreveport Grain & Elevator Co., 287 U.S. 77, 85, 53 S.Ct. 42, 77 L.Ed. 175; A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 541, 542, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570, 97 A.L.R. 947. Under the rule we have no doubt that Congress has the power under the Constitution to delegate the duty of determining what is and what is not "work of national importance". As a practical matter it could do nothing else. It would certainly be "impracticable" for Congress itself to attempt to differentiate between all work which is, and all work which is not, of that nature.

Neither do we doubt the constitutional power of Congress to delegate to others the duty of setting up some system whereby persons conscientiously opposed to even noncombatant military service are put to work of national importance in lieu of induction into the military establishment. Congress clearly stated its policy with respect to conscientious objectors in general by providing that those who...