Non-registrants defy draft law

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The following interview with Jim Lafferty was conducted in New York on April 25, 1984, by Alan Benjamin. Lafferty is presently the attorney for Dan Rutt, a young man accused of failing to register for the draft. An antidraft lawyer since the 1960s, Lafferty was a coordinator of the National Peace Action Coalition against the Vietnam war (NPAC), and until recently has been a leader of the Detroit chapter of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD).

Socialist Action: How have you defended Dan Rutt in the courts given that he has been issued all the warnings and has refused to register for the draft?

Lafferty: I represent Dan Rutt on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). We raised a number of challenges to the draft registration law and the prosecutions under it. First, the regulations had not been properly promulgated. This was not just some technical argument. We objected that the public hadn't had adequate input into the legislation.

We also said that the law is unconstitutional because it makes no provision for classification after a citizen has registered. In the case of Dan Rutt, it provided no opportunity for him to secure a conscientious objector exemption after he had registered. This means that if he did register, he would have to remain on a list of those arguably ready and willing to serve-contrary to his religious beliefs.

Finally we raised the argument that he was being prosecuted through a scheme that was constitutionally defective because out of the millions who hadn't registered, there was selective prosecution of only those who had used their first amendment right to speak out against registration.

S. A.: How did these objections stand up in court?

Lafferty: The judges in Michigan have ruled against us on the first three objections. However, there have been favorable rulings on these issues in other cases around the country.

S. A.: What is the next step?

Lafferty: There will be what is called an evidentiary hearing which precedes a trial—if a trial is to be held. We won the right to that hearing by proving to the judge that Rutt had been discriminated against for exercising his first amendment rights. A precedent was set when the conviction of Mark Elden Schmucker was reversed in Cleveland on similar grounds.

S. A.: So you are optimistic about the outcome of this case?

Latferty: There have been some interesting developments in this case. As part of our preparation, we asked for documents that the government held Among them were 25 documents that we believed were in the possession of the White House. We believed they would reveal White House involvement in selective prosecution of non-registrants. If we could show that the White House intervened in the prosecution of nonregistrants, it would prove selective prosecution.

S. A.: Did you get the papers?

Lafferty: No. A judge in Michigan had subpoenaed the documents and read them. He said we already had the bulk of the information in the papers. But even without the documents we have an advantage over the government.

S. A.: What is that?

Lafferty: In the evidentiary hearing the burden of proof is on the government. They have to prove that Dan Rutt was not singled out for selective prosecution. We plan to call about 12 witnesses. Among them will be White House Counsellor Ed Meese and Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger. That's not just a grandstand play on our part. Through the documents that we have looked at, we have in fact discovered that each of those officials intervened in the prosecutions of non-registrants. This is selective prosecution and is unconstitutional.

S. A.: There have been 16 prosecutions of non-registrants. Do you expect to see mass arrests in the near future?

Lafferty: We have to look at the context in which draft registration was reinstituted in 1980. It was promulgated but not really enforced. Instead, the government indulged in a very expensive campaign of publicity. They had entertainers who had spots on the radio to urge youth to sign up. But from 800,000 to one million failed to do so.

S. A.: What did the government do about these men defying the law?

Lafferty: They did not go after one million, but instituied a policy of passive enforcement. This meant the government would only prosecute cases that came to its attention-people like Ben Sasway or David Waithe, who notified the government that they hadn't registered, or people who were political or religious activists or who spoke at rallies or wrote letters to their Congresspersons. And even of this number not all are prosecuted. Of several hundred brought to the attention of the government, only 16 have been taken to court. These have all been political activists who have publicly expressed their views.

S .A.: Why has the government been so slow to jail men who defy the law?

Lafferty: Several reasons. Prosecuting all one million non-registrants Pierre Frank: 1905-1984 Pierre Frank, a founder of the Fourth International and secretary to Leon Trotsky, died on April 18, 1984. A leader of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, he was in the thick of working class struggles for over 60 years.

Pierre Frank was born in Paris in 1905. He joined the French Communist Party as a young trade union activist in 1925. Five years later, he was expelled from the party for his work in editing a journal that supported the revolutionary program of Leon Trotsky. In 1930 Frank helped to found the first Trotskyist organization in France-the Ligue Communiste. would overwhelm the legal system. Normally, federal indictments total only 5,000 a year. There are only 8,700 federal prison heds, all full. So the government could not jail all the non-registrants.

S. A.: Does this mean the government has given up on registration?

Lafferty: No. They are tracking down non-registrants through government computers. They are cross-checking drivers' licenses, social security cards, and other personal records. Then they send a series of letters to those who have not registered. Each letter is more threatening than the last. Finally the non-registrant gets a letter from the district attorney in his community.

S. A.: Has this tactic had any results?

Lafferty: Some men have signed up, but many have not been intimidated.

S. A.: Why is this?

Lafferty: The government has not followed up with indictments. They lost the David Waithe case. Convictions have been followed by light sentences. CARD started an anti-intimidation campaign. It put out literature that pointed out that if you failed to register and just kept quiet, your chances of being indicted were-to quote the U.S Justice Department-"about the same as being struck by lightning." We were in the front pages of the newspapers in many places in the country.

S. A.: Couldn't the government do anything about this campaign of defiance?

Frank was imprisoned at the time of the Nazi invasion, but escaped. He was arrested again in England in 1940, and remained in a British detention camp for close to five years.

After World War II, Frank played a key role in reassembling and training a revolutionary cadre in Europe. His party-building work was essential in helping the French Trotskyists to win a new generation of youth out of the 1968 revolutionary upsurge.

Frank placed the Fourth International at the center of his activity. He served in the leadership of the world Trotskyist movement until the end of his life. Socialist Action salutes comrade Pierre Frank, and we send our revolutionary solidarity to the French section of the Fourth International, the LCR. • Latferty: They had Congress pass the Solomon Amendment that said you had to prove you had registered for the draft to get student loans. Even women students must sign a form saying that they have registered or that they are not required to do so. The Solomon Amendment has already been challenged as unconstitutional in a case out in Minnesota. The court accepted the argument that the legislature in essence created the crime and the punishment without benefit of a trial and due proceSs.

S. A.: Has it had much affect on registration?

Lafferty: Only limited. Only college students are affected. Well-to-do students don't need the loans. Besides, there are not so many federal loans around any more.

S. A.: How much effect do your court cases have on the fight against registration and the draft?

Lafferty: Court victories alone will never stop the government instituting a military draft. Courts may find the whole present registration procedure unconstitutional. The government would just rewrite the law to overcome legal objections. But still court fights are useful. They keep the issue before the public. It has been a constant element while the antidraft movement has had its ups and downs.

S. A.: Why do we hear little protest against registration right now?

Lafferty: Registration has not been followed by a draft, and the threat of prosecution has not seemed imminent. In a way, our victories on the legal front have taken some steam out of mass protests.

S. A.: Yet registration and the draft are still threats. What do you think it will take to stop them?

Lafferty: In my opinion there will not be a strong movement to end registration and stop the draft until there is further escalation of the war in Central America by the government That is the irony of it. If you look back at the Vietnam experience, there was a draft before the escalation of the war but there was little protest against it. But when the draftees began coming back in body bags, then the antidraft movement grew. The antidraft movement became a large component of the antiwar movement.

S. A.: How does this apply to the present situation?

Lafferty: If we can't end U.S involvement in Central America, the war will escalate and a draft will be necessary to supply the troops. U.S. military forces are stretched too thin around the world. A draft instituted to feed a war in Central America will generate the antidraft sentiment. Of course, if we can stop intervention in Central America we can head off the draft. Meanwhile draft-age youth do not see the war as an immediate issue that affects them, and so they are not engaging in mass protest over registration.

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