Greene v. United States

1972-06-07

Headline: High court refused to review a failure-to-report conviction after a Selective Service Board reportedly ignored its own rules, leaving the conviction in place and blocking a hearing on board procedure.

Holding: The Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari, leaving the man's failure-to-report conviction in place and not resolving whether the local Selective Service Board violated its rules.

Real World Impact:

Leaves the failure-to-report conviction in place without Supreme Court review.
Does not decide whether the local Selective Service Board broke its procedural rules.
Highlights a Justice’s concern about Selective Service boards acting beyond rules.

Topics: Selective Service, military draft, administrative procedure, criminal conviction

Summary

Background

A man classified 1A by his local Selective Service Board was mailed an induction order to report on April 21, 1970. Before that date, two letters asking the Board to reconsider his classification were submitted, but the Board never considered them. Instead, the chairman spoke only with the clerk and took the action alone. The man was later convicted of failing to report, and his defense was that the Board had not followed its written regulations (32 C.F.R. § 1604.56).

Reasoning

The central question was whether the local Board lawfully handled the request to reopen the classification and followed the regulation requiring a quorum and votes by members present. The Supreme Court, in a one-line action, denied the petition for review and did not decide the merits of that question. Because the Court refused to hear the case, the trial conviction stands and the Court did not rule on whether the Board acted beyond its rules.

Real world impact

The denial leaves the failure-to-report conviction in place and does not provide a Supreme Court ruling on how Selective Service Boards must handle reconsideration requests. People challenging similar Board procedures do not get a Supreme Court decision from this case, and the procedural dispute remains unresolved in this record.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Douglas dissented, saying the Board acted lawlessly by allowing one officer to decide without the Board voting, and he would have granted review and set the case for argument to address those procedural failures.