CONSCRIPTION EVADERS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30062, 21 February 1963, Page 24

CONSCRIPTION EVADERS

Supreme Court Overrules Law (N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Feb. 18. The United States Supreme Court yesterday ruled uncon. stitutaomal by a 5-4 vote two Acts of Congress which strip citizenship from persons who stay abroad in war-time to avoid military service, the Associated Press reported. • The Court majority said the two acts failed to provide procedural safeguards which the Constitution demands, and therefore they could not stand. The majority reasoned that the two acts amounted to “ punishment” by withdrawal of citizenship. They declared that punishment could never be constitutionally imposed except after a criminal trial and conviction.

I, Feb. 18.

The Court ruled on two appeals by the United States Justice Department involving Dr. Joseph Cort, a Boston-born doctor who went abroad in 1951 and eventually settled in Czechoslovakia and Francisco Mendoza-Martinez, a Californian who went to Mexico in 1942, admittedly to evade military service.

Mendoza-Martinez returned to the United States in 1946 and pleaded guilty to a charge of evading military service. He was sentenced to one year in prison. In 1953. Mendoza - Martinez was ordered to be deported. He contested the order and won a decision in a United States District Court that a section of the NettonaMty Act of 1940 was unconstitutional. The section provides for loss of citizenship by conscription evaders Who leave the country.