Gerard W. Dillon v. Colonel v. L. Chandler

This appeal is by respondents-appellants, Colonel V. L. Chandler, General Stanley Larsen, Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor, and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird (hereinafter collectively referred to as “respondents” or as the “United States”), from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, granting a writ of habeas corpus to petitioner-appellee Army Second Lieutenant Gerard W. Dillon. The petitioner claimed a conscientious objector exemption. Colonel Chandler is the Commanding Officer of Travis Air Force Base, Fairfield, California. General Larsen is the Commanding Officer of the Sixth United States Army, stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco, California. Colonel Chandler is the only one of the respondents stationed in the Eastern District of California.

We reverse because the District Court for the Eastern District lacked jurisdiction to grant the writ. Petitoner is an Army officer who was stationed in Oklahoma. He had been ordered to attend artillery school there, and then, after a month’s leave, to report to California for shipment to Vietnam. He filed an application for discharge as a conscientious objector in Oklahoma but…