Wesley Lawrence Uffelman v. United States

Recognition of the privilege of conscientious objection to military service is a statutory grace, not a Constitutional right. While it is true that, implementing this grace, certain procedural safeguards have been established by statute and administrative rule, these safeguards cannot be parlayed into rigid Constitutional guarantees of a “trial” before a draft board.

In United States v. Macintosh, 1931, 283 U.S. 605, 623 , 51 S.Ct. 570, 575 , 75 L.Ed. 1302 , the purely statutory character of this grace was spelled out by the Supreme Court in unequivocal words:

When, as here, a draft registrant chooses to be indicted rather than inducted, he can clamor for only limited “rights”.

1. Statement of Facts

Since the appellant’s legal contentions are .related with especial closeness to his particular situation in the instant case, a somewhat detailed summary of the facts will be helpful.

The appellant registered with the Selective Service on September 18, 1948. He filed an eight-page Classification Questionnaire on May 2, 1949, containing, inter alia, the following statements:

He was born on February 11, 1930. His “occupation” was that of dairy and beef farmer. (At the time of his…