Cox v. United States

Background

Three Jehovah’s Witnesses (Cox, Thompson, and Roisum) claimed they were ministers and therefore exempt from service under the draft law. Each exhausted the selective service appeals process but was ordered to report to a civilian public service camp. Each left or failed to return to camp and was tried for absence without leave. Their selective service files contained ordination certificates, affidavits from church leaders, and schedules of religious activity, but the local boards denied ministerial classification and classified them otherwise.

Reasoning

The central question was how far a judge or jury can go in reviewing a draft board’s classification in a criminal trial. The Court held that, after a registrant exhausts administrative remedies, a judge may review the board’s file only to decide whether there is any factual basis for the board’s classification. If the judge finds a factual basis, the jury should not be allowed to relitigate the classification; the matter is not to be retried as if the administrative decision never happened. The Court also said evidence at trial on the classification should generally be limited to the record the board used.

Real world impact

The decision makes it harder for people claiming minister status to overturn draft-board decisions in criminal trials. Judges will look first to the board files and will sustain classifications that have any factual support, keeping the issue from juries. That confines defendants to the administrative record when defending against charges for failing to obey draft orders.

Dissents or concurrances

Two dissents argued the boards lacked adequate basis and that the standard of review was too deferential; Justices Douglas and Murphy would have allowed broader judicial inquiry and felt the evidence showed the men were bona fide ministers.