United States v. Nugent/Opinion of the Court

Under Selective Service Act subsection entitling claimant denied classification as conscientious objector by local draft board to further review by an appropriate appeal board and requiring appeal board to refer claim to Department of Justice for inquiry and hearing, neither Department investigation nor its hearing is determinative, and it is not function of such auxiliary procedure to provide full scale trial for each appealing registrant; standards of procedure to which Department must adhere being simply standards which will enable it to discharge its duty to forward sound advice, as expeditiously as possible, to appeal board. Selective Service Act of 1948, § 6(j), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 456(j).

The Selective Service Act is a comprehensive statute designed to provide orderly, efficient and fair procedure for marshalling available manpower of country and to impose a common obligation of military service on all physically fit young men; and since it is calculated to function in times of peril, it is desirable that procedure be free from litigious interruption. Selective Service Act of 1948, § 6(j), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 456(j).

Selective Service Act is valid exercise of war power. Selective Service Act of 1948, § 6(j), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 456(j).

There is no violation of Fifth Amendment by Selective Service Act subsection entitling claimant denied classification as conscientious objector by local draft board to further review by an appropriate appeal board and requiring appeal board to refer claim to Department of Justice for inquiry and hearing, even though there is no requirement that registrant be permitted to see investigator's report or be informed of names of persons interviewed by investigators. Selective Service Act of 1948, § 6(j), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 456(j); U.S.C.A.Const. Amend. 5.

Mr. Robert W. Ginnane, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Mr. Hayden C. Covington, Brooklyn, N.Y., for respondents.

Mr. Chief Justice VINSON delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 6(j) of the Selective Service Act provides exemption from military service-partial or full, depending upon the circumstances-for any person 'who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.' If the conscientious objector's claim for relief under this section is denied by his local draft board, he is entitled to further review by an 'appropriate appeal board.' All such appeals are referred to the Department of Justice for an 'appropriate inquiry' and a 'hearing.' The Department of Justice then makes a recommendation to the appeal board, which may or may not follow it in reviewing the local board's classification.

These two cases are concerned with the procedure, established by regulation and practice, which is followed when a conscientious objector's appeal is referred to the Department of Justice. The Department has regularly used the FBI to investigate each appealing registrant's background and reputation for sincerity. A hearing is then held before a designated 'hearing officer.' The registrant is allowed to appear in person, and, if he chooses, he may bring with him an advisor and witnesses to testify in his behalf. Upon request, he is entitled to be instructed 'as to the general nature and character' of any 'unfavorable' evidence developed by the Department's investigation. But he is not permitted to see the FBI report, nor is he informed of the names of persons interviewed by the investigators.

It is the Department's refusal to disclose the entire FBI reports which precipitates the issues now before us. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that this procedure violates a registrant's rights under the Selective Service Act. We granted certiorari, 345 U.S. 915, 73 S.Ct. 728, because that determination seemed in conflict with the decisions of other Courts of Appeals and because it dealt with an important problem in the administration of the Selective Service Act.

Each of the respondents claims to be a conscientious objector entitled to total exemption from military service. Each has been convicted of wilfully refusing to submit to induction in the armed forces of the United States. At their trials, respondents challenged the validity of their selective service classifications, claiming that they were fixed without basis in fact and without adherence to the procedures prescribed by § 6(j) of the Act; each claimed that the Department of Justice's failure to show him the FBI reports rendered his classification illegal. The Court of Appeals, reversing each respondent's conviction, sustained the claims.

We think that the Court of Appeals erred. We think that the statutory scheme for review, within the selective service system, of exemptions claimed by conscientious objectors entitles them to no guarantee that the FBI reports must be produced for their inspection. We think the Department of Justice satisfies its duties under § 6(j) when it accords a fair opportunity to the registrant to speak his piece before an impartial hearing officer; when it permits him to produce all relevant evidence in his own behalf and at the same time supplies him with a fair re sume of any adverse evidence in the investigator's report.

Respondents urge that this is not enough. The argument rides hard upon the word 'hearing' in § 6(j). It is suggested that the 'hearing' prescribed by Congress was purposely designed to allow the registrant to refute-item by item, if necessary-the matters discussed in the investigator's report. In sum, respondents assimilate the 'hearing' in § 6(j) to a trial and insist that it imports a right to confront every informant who may have rendered adverse comment to the FBI.

The statute does entitle the registrant to a 'hearing,' and of course no sham substitute will meet this requirement; but we do not think that the word 'hearing'-when put in the context of the whole scheme for review set forth in § 6(j)-comprehends the formal and litigious procedures which respondents' interpretation would attribute to it. Instead, the word takes its meaning in this instance from an analysis of the precise function which Congress has imposed upon the Department of Justice in § 6(j).

The duty to classify-to grant or deny exemptions to conscientious objectors-rests upon the draft boards, local and appellate, and not upon the Department of Justice. The registrant must first look to his local board for the relief he claims; he must convince this body-composed of representatives of his own community-of the depth and sincerity of his convictions. He must fill out forms, calculated to put him to the test; he must supply any additional detailed information which may be necessary for a searching investigation of his claim; and, if he or his local board demands it, he may appear in person to explain his position to the persons charged with determining its validity.

If the local board denies the claim, the responsibility for review, if sought, falls upon the appeal board. The Department of Justice takes no action which is decisive. Its duty is to advise, to render an auxiliary service to the appeal board in this difficult class of cases. Congress was under no compulsion to supply this auxiliary service-to provide for a more exhaustive processing of the conscientious objector's appeal. Registrants who claim exemption for some reason other than conscientious objection, and whose claims are denied, are entitled to no 'hearing' before the Department. Yet in this special class of cases, involving as it does difficult analyses of facts and individualized judgments, Congress directed that the assistance of the Department be made available whenever a registrant insists that his conscientious objection claim has been misjudged by his local board. Observes sympathetic to the problems of the conscientious objector have recognized that this provision in the statute improves the system of review by helping the appeal boards to reach a more informed judgment on the appealing registrant's claims, But it has long been recognized that neither the Department's 'appropriate investigation' nor its 'hearing' is the determinative investigation and the determinative hearing in each case. It has regularly been assumed that it is not the function of this auxiliary procedure to provide a full-scale trial for each appealing registrant.

Accordingly, the standards of procedure to which the Department must adhere are simply standards which will enable it to discharge its duty to forward sound advice, as expeditiously as possible, to the appeal board. Certainly, this is an important and delicate responsibility, but we do not think the statute requires the Department to entertain an all-out collateral attack at the hearing on the testimony obtained in its prehearing investigation.

Respondents urge that they have a right to such a procedure under the Fifth Amendment. We cannot agree.

The Selective Service Act is a comprehensive statute designed to provide an marshal the available manpower of the country, to impose a common obligation of military service on all physically fit young men. It is a valid exercise of the war power. It is calculated to function-it functions today-in times of peril. Even so, Congress took care to provide special treatment for those who could not reconcile participation in the defense effort with their religious beliefs-if those beliefs were a matter of sincere conviction. Profiting from the experiences of the First World War, Congress adopted a new and special procedure to secure the rights of conscience, which had been given express statutory recognition.

It is always difficult to devise procedures which will be adequate to do justice in cases where the sincerity of another's religious convictions is the ultimate factual issue. It is especially difficult when these procedures must be geared to meet the imperative needs of mobilization and national vigilance-when there is no time for 'litigious interruptions.' Falbo v. United States, 1949, 320 U.S. 549, 64 S.Ct. 346, 88 L.Ed. 305. Under the circumstances presented, we cannot hold that the statute, as we construe it, violates the Constitution.

The judgments are reversed.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS join, dissenting.

That so strong a court and one so strong in literary endowment-Swan, Ch. J., Learned Hand and Frank, JJ.-should rely, as did the Court of Appeals in this case, 2 Cir., 200 F.2d 46, 49 50, on the opinion of a District Judge, impressively attests the persuasiveness of that opinion. Chief Judge Hincks has stated also for me the compelling reasons why the refusal to make available the FBI report on a registrant claiming exemption as a conscientious objector invalidates, on any fair construction of the requirements of the Selective Service Act, his classification as 1-A.

'It is true that on the precise point of law involved the     (Selective Service) Act is not explicit: when it directs the      board to refer the registrant's claim of conscientious      objection 'for inquiry and hearing' by the Department (of      Justice), it does not specify that the product both of the      inquiry and of the hearing shall be made available to the      board. But neither does the Act suggest any reason why the     product of the hearing should go forward to the board, as it      did here as a matter of course, and the product of the      inquiry should be withheld.

'There are, however, other provisions in the Act from which I     think one must imply a Congressional intent that the board      should have access to the investigative report. The same     section of the Act proceeds to provide that after inquiry a      hearing shall be had of which the registrant shall be      notified. The natural import of this provision is, I think,     that the investigative report resulting from the inquiry      shall be made a part of the record for consideration by all      directly concerned with the classification. Under the     contemplated procedure the registrant has already had an      opportunity before the draft board to put everything desired      into the record. That being so there would be no point to     notify him to appear in the departmental hearing just to put      in more evidence. Thus, by elimination, the only useful     purpose of notice at that stage was to give the registrant      opportunity to meet the contents of the report. * *  *

'Congress was not using empty words when in Sec. 451 of the     Act it solemnly declared 'that in a free society the obligations and privileges of serving in the      armed forces and the reserve components thereof should be      shared generally, in accordance with a system of selection      which is fair and just, and which is consistent with the      maintenance of an effective national economy.' A system in      which selections might be made in uninformed reliance upon      the recommendation of an executive officer bottomed perhaps      on secret police reports, would indeed make a mockery of that      high declaration of policy. Only if the Act be construed to     require that the investigative reports shall become a part of      the record open to the appeal board and all concerned is the      'system of selection *  *  * fair and just' within our      Anglo-Saxon concepts of justice and due process.' (United      States v. Geyer, D.C., 108 F.Supp. 70, 72-72.

There is a note of uneasiness in the Court's recognition of the difficulty of 'devising' procedures 'adequate to do justice in cases where the sincerity of another's religious convictions' is in issue. Courts are, no doubt, closely circumscribed in 'devising' such procedures where Congress has, with sufficient clarity, bound the allowable judicial discretion in applying legislation. And, of course, only within narrow limits may courts reject a procedure, devised by Congress, on constitutional grounds. The Due Process Clause cannot be bent to what a judge may privately think is wisdom in respecting dissident views. But here the Court ought not to feel an impotent uneasiness. It is not called upon to devise a just procedure; merely to apply one. Considering the traditionally high respect that dissent, and particularly religous dissent, has enjoyed in our view of a free society, this Court ought not to reject a construction of congressional language which assures justice in cases where the sincerity of another's religious conviction is at stake and where prison may be the alternative to an abandonment of conscience. The enemy is not yet so near the gate that we should allow respect for traditions of fairness, which has heretofore prevailed in this country, to be overborne by military exigencies.

The suggestion that the registrants in these cases have waived their rights by not asking for 'a fair resume ' of any adverse evidence in the investigator's report seems to me an instance of keeping the word of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope. The very purpose of a hearing is to give registrants an opportunity to meet adverse evidence. It makes a mockery of that purpose to suggest that such adverse evidence can be effectively met if its provenance is unknown. Nor is it possible to be confident that a 'resume is fair' when one cannot know what it is a resume of. This does not suggest purposeful unfairness, still less, want of zeal. Language is treacherous and the meaning of what is written to no small degree derives from him who reads it. In a country with our moral and material strength the maintenance of fair procedures cannot handicap our security. Every adherence to our moral professions reinforces our strength and therefore our security.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK concurs, dissenting.