Last bid to save Clay from imprisonment

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 17

Last bid to save Clay from imprisonment

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK, Feb. 26. A final effort to stop the former world heavyweight boxing champion, Cassius Clay, from being sent to prison for draft evasion, was filed with the United States Supreme Court today by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.

It was only last month that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Clay’s appeal to reverse a five-year conviction for draft evasion, on the ground that he is a conscientious objector.

The court’s decision to hear the case cleared the last obstacle preventing Clay, who is also known as Muhammad Ali, from fighting Joe Frazier for the undisputed heavyweight title on March 8.

Clay was stripped of the title and banned from boxing in 1967, when he refused to go into the Army on the ground that he was a conscientious objector and a Black Moslem minister.

A Federal District Court ruled last year that he be allowed to fight in the State of New York. REVIEW SOUGHT

Today’s brief asks the Supreme Court to review his claim that he is a conscientious objector, and to determine whether erroneous information supplied to the lower courts by the Justice Department was responsible for his conviction.

The brief questions whether his Constitutional

rights to freedom of religion, < as guaranteed in the First Amendment, has been infringed upon because he followed “the unorthodox and unpopular teachings of the lost-found nation of Islam, i.e., the Moslems.” It also alleges that the Justice Department played a dual role in the case. The brief says: “The Justice Department was conducting F. 8.1. investigations and systematic illegal wiretaps of Moslem leaders because it considered them a threat to the internal security of the country, having been asked to determine whether Clay’s religious beliefs, and his refusal to enter the war, were sincere.” THREE TESTS

The brief says that a claim to being a conscientious objector must rely on three basic tests: he must demonstrate that he is conscientiously opposed to participation in all wars; that his opposition is by reason of religious training and belief; and that he is sincere in his beliefs.

“The petitioner was denied such an exemption in the present case, as a result of a decision by a Selective Service Board which did not-give any reason for its rejection of his claim,” the brief goes on. “But the advisory opinion from the Department of Jus-, tice upon which this board relied recommended that the petitioner’s claim be denied because of its failure to satisfy any of the statutory criteria.

“All of the Department of Justice’s conclusions, however, were clearly erroneous, and they cannot support the denial . . .” The brief also submits that the Moslem faith clearly

constitutes a religion, and that “the implicit determination that the petitioner’s beliefs were not religious, but ; political,” was erroneous. The petition adds: “The , failure to recognise that the nation of Islam is a religion • under the act also affronted I the First Amendment’s guar- ’ antee of religious freedom.” The outcome of Clay’s case • will affect many other Mosi lems who have also refused I to join the American armed I forces.