Wallace v. Chafee

323 F. Supp. 902, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14160
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedMarch 17, 1971
DocketCiv. No. 70-215-T
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 323 F. Supp. 902 (Wallace v. Chafee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wallace v. Chafee, 323 F. Supp. 902, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14160 (S.D. Cal. 1971).

Opinion

[903]*903MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

TURRENTINE, District Judge.

This is a military habeas corpus action brought by an enlisted man in the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve seeking relief from the sentence of a summary court-martial on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction. The court has considered the pleadings, affidavits and memoranda on file as well as evidence and oral argument adduced at an evidentiary hearing. This memorandum of decision embodies findings of fact and conclusions of law.

The facts of the case are undisputed. Petitioner enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve for six years on January 9, 1967. During the enlistment proceedings and shortly prior to taking the oath of enlistment, petitioner was presented with written orders assigning him to Class II, inactive duty for training with the Fourth Tank Battalion, Force Troops, Fleet Marine Force. These orders recited that upon petitioner’s voluntary acceptance of the orders he would be required to perform forty-eight regular drills and not more than seventeen days of active duty for training each year. The orders further specified that during these periods of training duty petitioner would be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice1 (hereinafter “Uniform Code”). Petitioner executed a written endorsement to the orders stating that he voluntarily accepted them.

Petitioner’s reserve service proceeded uneventfully for several years, but in early 1970 he was charged with willfully disobeying an order of his superior commissioned officer to get a haircut, a violation of Article 90 of the Uniform Code, 10 U.S.C. § 890. He rejected nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code and was subsequently convicted of the offense by a summary court-martial. He was sentenced to be confined at hard labor for twenty-one days, to forfeit $60.00 pay per month for one month, and to be reduced to the grade of private, E-l. Execution of this sentence was deferred pursuant to Article 57 of the Uniform Code, 10 U.S.C. § 857.

Jurisdiction of the summary court-martial over petitioner is predicated on Article 2(3) of the Uniform Code which reads as follows:

“Art. 2. Persons Subject to this Chapter. The following persons are subject to this chapter:
* * •» «• * *
(3) Members of a reserve component while they are on inactive duty training authorized by written orders which are voluntarily accepted by them and which specify that they are subject to this chapter.”

Petitioner’s threefold challenge to the jurisdiction of the court-martial centers on the requirements of this statute. He first asserts that the orders subjecting him to the Uniform Code are invalid because they were issued prior to the oath of enlistment when he was, in fact, a civilian. This claim is without merit. An enlistment proceeding requires the execution of various documents denoting the acceptance of certain rights and liabilities, but the process is essentially one integrated transaction. Petitioner may not have been a marine before taking the oath, but the volitional act of accepting these orders survives until the administration of the oath accomplishes the complete change of status.

Petitioner next asserts that jurisdiction over inactive duty reserve personnel is limited to situations involving the use of dangerous and expensive equipment. During the hearings on the Uniform Code, there was commentary from individual congressmen and witnesses to the effect that court-martial jurisdiction over inactive duty reservists would be exercised by the military only in situations involving the use of dangerous and expensive equipment. [904]*904However, the statute clearly imposes only three conditions for the exercise of court-martial jurisdiction over inactive duty reservists: (1) authorization by written order; (2) voluntary acceptance by the reservists; and (3) the orders must specify that the reservist is subject to the Uniform Code. The precise and comprehensive formulation of the statute leaves no room for additional conditions not expressed by Congress.2 Where statutory provisions are clear and unambiguous on their face, there is no warrant for consulting the legislative history. United States v. Oregon, 366 U.S. 643, 648, 81 S.Ct. 1278, 6 L.Ed.2d 575 (1961); United States v. McKesson & Robbins, 351 U.S. 305, 315, 76 S.Ct. 937, 100 L.Ed. 1209 (1956). If Congress had desired to further restrict court-martial jurisdiction it could have done so with a few strokes of the pen. The most that can be said of the remarks about dangerous and expensive equipment is that they illustrated situations where that jurisdiction was thought to be necessary.3

The most substantial question posed is whether the military may, by a single “blanket” order issued at the time of enlistment, extend court-martial jurisdiction to cover all inactive duty training periods during the enlistment. Petitioner argues that this order, which in effect eliminates any choice beyond the day of enlistment, is incompatible with the requirement that the orders be voluntarily accepted. The statute itself prescribes no time for issuing such orders, nor does it limit the duration of an order. At the outset, however, it appears that any element of choice is reduced to its minimum dimensions by the procedure followed in this case. The danger to voluntariness is that in the middle of a sea of forms the young man entering the service is signing away certain fundamental rights of civilian criminal justice. The validity of a waiver of these rights should be measured by no less a standard than that of an “intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege” set forth in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938).

That the concept of a knowing submission to court-martial discipline was intended by Congress is confirmed by a [905]*905consideration of the background and history of the legislation. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is a comprehensive penal statute which was designed to modernize military law and to bring all the military services under one body of substantive and procedural law for the purposes of military discipline. It supplanted the former Articles of War, the Articles for the Government of the Navy, and the Disciplinary Laws of the Coast Guard. The final enactment was the product of numerous military and civilian committees which had studied the problems of military justice since the end of World War II. The bill presented to Congress had been drafted by a Defense Department Committee appointed by Secretary Forrestal and chaired by Professor Edmund Morgan, Jr.

It appears that prior to enactment of the Uniform Code, the Navy and Marine Corps possessed the most extensive jurisdiction over inactive duty reservists under the Articles for the Government of the Navy, formerly codified in 34 U. S.C. § 855.

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Bluebook (online)
323 F. Supp. 902, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14160, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wallace-v-chafee-casd-1971.