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266 11 When Law and Conscience Conflict The Draft Nonregistration Case of United States v. Mark Arden Schmucker Elizabeth Reilly It was high summer. The stone halls of the old District Courthouse in Cleveland seemed a world apart—light, heat, and sound muted. Mark Schmucker, a soft-spoken Mennonite college student, had been indicted for failing to register for the Selective Service and was being arraigned in Case CR 82–133A. Outside on the steps, sympathizers gathered and the media clustered; this was big news on a national scale. But inside, a quieter, more intense drama was unfolding.1 Only weeks before, the chief prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Arbeznik, had requested permission from the Department of Justice to decline prosecution in the case, due to Mark’s sincere religious objections to registration itself. Echoing that reluctance, during trial District Judge Ann Aldrich stated, “Presiding over this case is not a task I would have chosen”; she would later describe the case as her “own personal hell.” And Mark, though adamant about adhering to his religious convictions and not registering, candidly expressed that not only was he “tired of being Mr. Non-Registrant” but also that he had acted with respect for the government and the law and dreaded prison following conviction. So how is it that the “case nobody wanted” came to trial in the Northern District of Ohio courthouse?2 267 When Law and Conscience Conflict This is the story of what brought Mark Schmucker and the government to the courthouse and what happened once their worldviews collided. Mark Schmucker’s odyssey to indictment began in January 1980 when President Jimmy Carter expressed an interest in reinstituting registration after the Soviet Union began military action in Afghanistan. Mark, a lifelong Mennonite , was a student at Goshen College, a Mennonite school in Indiana. He had personally adopted the Mennonite beliefs, especially as they related to war, peace, and Christian love. In response to the potential reinstitution of registration, the Mennonite Central Committee’s U.S. Peace Section held an Assembly on the Draft and National Service on March 27–29, 1980, at Goshen. The assembly explored responses to registration consistent with the Mennonites’ historical stance toward peace. One of the options presented was “conscientious resistance” or “noncooperation ” through nonregistration, which proved to be an alternative that many of the young men facing registration were contemplating.3 Many Goshen students determined that their religious beliefs required nonregistration, especially because there was no opportunity to be sequestered from the pool of potential draftees by seeking or obtaining conscientious objector (CO) status.4 Mark joined a group of concerned students to discuss how they would respond if registration were indeed reinstituted. The young men in his group met weekly and explored the religious underpinnings of opposition to military participation , the place of registration in the military system, and what their own personal religious responses to registration would be.5 While Mark was soul-searching, President Carter reinstituted registration with the Selective Service System, issuing Presidential Proclamation 4771 on July 2, 1980. At the signing of the proclamation, the president remarked: “I would ask the support of all Americans for this move: Americans in the age that will be registered and Americans of all ages . . . who believe in maintaining peace through strength.” The proclamation required males born in 1960 to register for military service between the dates of July 21, 1980, and July 26, 1980, unless precluded by a condition beyond their control.6 Mark had been born on October 4, 1960. Despite reinstituting registration, Congress chose not to reinstitute a draft. In addition, the government chose not to engage in the usual follow-up to registration—classification in accord with the congressional system. As a result, potential conscientious objectors could not seek CO status and hence removal from the pool of combat-eligible registrants.7 268 Elizabeth Reilly The government itself identified the registration requirement as militaristic policy. President Carter declared that registration was a “military step” taken “to convince the Soviet Union that their action in Afghanistan is ill-advised.” “The inauguration of registration by the President and Congress was not merely a prelude to possible future conscription. It was an act of independent foreign policy significance—a deliberate response to developments overseas.” Its purpose was “to prepare for a draft of combat troops” and “to develop a pool of potential combat troops.”8 Requiring Mark to register, therefore, required him to...

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