Law: Uncle Sam Convicts No. 1

Trials begin for men refusing to register for the draft

Early in the day in Roanoke, Va., 150 people sang hymns and prayed under the American flag outside the federal courthouse. Then most filed inside to support their new-found hero, Enten Eller, 20, the first man to be tried for violating the 1980 draft-registration regulations. Eller, a member of the pacifist Church of the Brethren, offered no formal defense during the 3½ hour trial last week. "God called me not to register," he explained to District Court Judge James Turk.

Eller's stand won Turk's respect but not the case. After calling the defendant "an honorable person," Turk sentenced him to three years on probation and 250 hours of community service. The judge ruled that if he did not register within 90 days, he could face stiffer punishment, up to the law's maximum of a $10,000 fine and five years in prison. Back outside, Eller stood firm. Registering now, he told reporters, "would make a farce out of what I did before."

So began a series of trials that federal officials hope will strike the fear of Uncle Sam into young men who have failed to register. The drama in Roanoke can be traced to the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Congress to fund a registration system so that any subsequent draft could produce an army quickly. Candidate Ronald Reagan said he opposed the system, but once in office retained it on the grounds of "national safety." Under the law, males must report to a post office within 30 days before or after their 18th birthday and provide name, address, telephone number, birth date and Social Security number. Registrants still have the right, if there is an actual draft, to claim then that they are conscientious objectors. So far 8.4 million men, 92% of those covered, have registered.

That leaves 674,000 who have not.

The Justice Department is the first to admit that it is not likely to try all of them. "Our objective," Selective Service System Director Thomas Turnage told a House subcommittee last March, "is not to prosecute or to incarcerate, but to get them to register." Barry Lynn, the antiregistration president of Draft Action, maintains that the Government's goal "is really to silence religious and political dissenters against conscription, a tactic used in the Soviet Union routinely." Whatever the aim, the first targets were 160 men who, like Eller, wrote the Government to announce their refusal to register or who were turned in by disapproving neighbors. The Justice Department decided to move against the 70 on the list who were "most adamant" about not complying. By last week, five had been indicted. Said David Wayte, 21, who goes to trial in Los Angeles next month: "I was surprised it went that far."