Note: Most of this Web site describes the “self-registration” system which remains in effect through 2026.
“Automatic” draft registration is scheduled to be implemented in December 2026.
Prosecutions of Draft Registration Resisters
20 prosecutions of nonregistrants since 1980 (none since 1986)
[Picket line and press conference with nonregistrants and supporters in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco in July, 1982, one of more than 100 protests, marches, rallies, and vigils throughout the country within days after the first indictment of a nonregistrant, Ben Sasway, in San Diego. In top photo, Michael Marsh speaks to reporters about his refusal to register. Each indictment of a nonregistrant prompted more young men to speak out publicly about their refusal to register. At least several hundred young men who were required to register, and perhaps as many as several thousand, actively publicized their resistance or informed the government of their refusal to comply with the law, but only 20 were ever prosecuted.
Many more women and older men who weren’t required to register also violated the law by advocating, organizing, and assisting
resistance to draft registration, but the Department of Justice declined to prosecute any of them. Photos by Bev Ramsay for Resistance News.]
Violations of Selective Service laws and regulations: 40,000,000+ since 1980
(extrapolated from GAO and Selective Service System estimates of compliance rates;
there has been no GAO or other independent audit of compliance with registration since 1982)
[This front-page banner headline story in the Boston Globe, just as students were returning to colleges for the 1980-1981 school year, summed up the results of the first independent national attempt to survey compliance with draft registration.]
[Mike Keefe, Denver Post, 1982. “This is my final warning… either register for the draft or climb into the paddy wagon.”]
Nonregistration (at least 10% of young men never register at all)
Selective Service System Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2017
(See page 7: “If a man fails to register or fails to provide evidence that he is exempt from the registration requirement after receiving Selective Service reminder and/or compliance mailings, his name is referred to the Department of Justice (DoJ) as required by the Military Selective Service Act…. In FY 2017, 184,051 names and addresses of suspected violators were provided to DoJ.” None of these nonregistrants were investigated or prosecuted by the DOJ.)
Survey: Many Didn’t Register For Draft; Post Offices across US report no-shows far above 2% predicted
(by Alan M. MacRobert, Boston Globe, 27 August 1980, p. 1. “As many as 25 percent of the nation’s 19- and 20-year-old men failed to register for the draft last month… A sampling of postal districts across the country showed that 1 million of the 4 million civilian American males born in 1960 and 1961 ignored or defied the requirement…. The draft registration program appears to be, if not a failure, at least in serious trouble.” This number of nonregistrants in the initial age cohorts was later confirmed by the government, and was was twice as large as the most optimistic estimates by resistance organizations had been before registration began.)
Californians, as in 1960’s, Lead in Resistance to Selective Service (New York Times, 22 August 1982)
“For every one of those who openly say, ‘I’m not going to register,’ there are probably 50 to 100 who are doing it privately,” said Fred Moore of the National Resistance Committee in San Francisco.” (Despite the headline on this article, percentages of noncompliance are much higher in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. colonies where residents lack full U.S. voting rights but are subject to registration and the draft, although in light of California’s population, the largest absolute number number of Selective Service law-breakers is undoubtedly in California.)
Selective Service Without a Draft (by James B. Jacobs and Dennis McNamara, Armed Forces & Society 10, no. 3, 1984)
“Notwithstanding a few defeats in the lower courts, registration’s legal foundation has remained intact. Yet the success of the program is questionable. Perhaps as many as a million young men, for one reason or another, have failed to register. A small number have been prosecuted, even jailed, but the number of noinregistrants continues to grow. Unless a vigorous enforcement program is implemented soon, draft registration may evolve into a de facto voluntary program. Yet vigorous enforcement implies significant social, economic, and political costs. Would the costs be worth shouldering or is it more sensible to abandon draft registration?”
Late registration (most registrations are months or years after the registrant’s 18th birthday, and it is possible for a man to register at any time until his 26th birthday, by which time he is too old to be drafted)
Change of address without notice to the SSS (at least half of all registrants)
Failure Of Registrants To Report Address Changes Would Diminish Fairness Of Induction Processing
(General Accounting Office report FPCD-82-45, September 24, 1982.
“We estimate that about 20% to 40% of addresses in Selective Service files will be outdated for registrants who turn 20 in any given year…. At the end of 8 years, when registrants reach their last year of draft eligibility,
the extent of outdated address could reach almost 75%. As a result of outdated addresses,
mnay registrants would not receive induction notices.”)
“The list that they have I doubt could pass the legal definition of a complete and objective list, because it is structurally flawed and Selective Service knows it. It’s a list that I’m sure the courts would throw out immediately because it’s not accurate.” (Bernard Rostker, Director of the Selective Service System 1979-1981, in a podcast interview with Lillian Cunningham of the Washington Post, 4 December 2017)
“The case of the United States against Andy Mager is also the case of the United States against each of us, and against many others who are not here today. We are Andy’s friends, family, and neighbors. His indictment is also an indictment of our work, of our beliefs, and of our feelings against registration, the draft, militarism, and war. We are here with Andy to answer your charges against us. For us to be here and to make this statement is for us to support, aid, and abet Andy, as unindicted co-defendants. We ask, if you convict Andy Mager, that you convict all of us, that you imprison all of us, or none of us.” (Solidarity statement signed by 2,600 people and entered into the record by Andy at his sentencing in Syracuse, NY, 4 February 1985. Supporters had attempted to read similar statements at court hearings in the cases of Edward Hasbrouck and Russ Ford.)
Conspiracy to counsel, aid, abet, or resist
National Resistance “Conspiracy”?
(1984 article analyzing government documents and other sources on the government’s prosecution policy and the possibility of prosecutions for conspiracy, aid, abetment, or advocacy of draft registration resistance)
[Picket line outside the Federal courthouse in San Diego after the indictment of Ben Sasway. “You can jail the resister, but not the Resistance!” David Wayte (in center, with “No Draft, No War” sign) was indicted soon after in Los Angeles. Photo from the San Diego Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft.]
“A July 9, 1982, communication to United States Attorneys from the Justice Department ‘requires that United States Attorneys notify non-registrants by registered mail that, unless they register within a specified time, prosecutions will be considered. In most instances we anticipate that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents will also interview alleged non-registrants prior to the initiation of prosecutions. Nevertheless, if a non-registrant registers prior to indictment, no further prosecutive action will be taken. The policy is designed to ensure that the refusal to register is willful.’” (U.S. District Court decision in U.S. v. Eklund, 551 F. Supp. 964, S.D. Iowa 1982.)
“Apparently the moral of the government’s policy is: if you want to evade the draft registration law,
do nothing, say nothing, and you will not be prosecuted. Only those with the courage and candor
to write the government refusing to register will be punished.” (U.S. v. Eklund, 733 F.2d 1287,
8th Circuit, 1984, en banc, Lay, Chief Judge, dissenting)
Steve Schlossberg (Minneapolis, MN; Baptist; registered, but was allowed to indicate intent to seek conscientious objector status on a special registration form)
Terry Kuelper (Little Rock, AR; registered, charge withdrawn before trial)
Michael McMillan (Madison, WI; registered, pre-trial diversion, 1 year unsupervised probation, no criminal record)
Phetsamay Maokhamphio (Lafayette, LA; registered, pre-trial diversion, 1 year unsupervised probation, no criminal record)
Jon Harshberger (Ft. Wayne, IN; Church of the Brethren)
Gillam Kerley (Madison, WI; pled guilty after original jury trial verdict and prison sentence were overturned on appeal because the trial judge had failed to instruct the jury that the government had to prove the defendant knew he was legally required to register)
Convictions and Sentences: 15 (note that all of these sentences were imposed under the rules in effect before the Federal Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and the creation of the Federal sentencing guidelines)
Unsupervised probation: 1
Kendal Warkentine (2 years; sentenced under the Youth Corrections Act and conviction vacted following completion of probation)
Mark Schmucker (2 years “voluntary public service”, $4,000 fine; sentenced under the Youth Corrections Act
and conviction vacated following completion of probation)
Rusty Martin (3 years, register, attend 2 naturalization ceremonies, $10,000 fine)
Jon Harshbarger (2 years “voluntary public service”, $1,500 fine)
Imprisonment: 9
Russ Ford (refused to accept conditions of release on bond, jailed 35 days pending trial,
sentenced to the 35 days time he had already served)
Dan Rutt
(3 months in “Community Correctional Facility” [halfway house])
Sam Matthews (sentenced originally to 1 year + 1 day, sentence
commuted to time served and released unconditionally after 3 months)
Edward Hasbrouck (sentence originally suspended,
probation later revoked because judge disagreed with political message sent by peace work, despite testimony of probation officer that it satisfied conditions of sentence; resentenced to 6 months; released unconditionally after 4 1/2 months)
Andy Mager (sentenced to 6 months, released unconditionally after 4 1/2 months)
Paul Jacob (sentenced to 6 months, released on probation after 4 1/2 months)
Gary Eklund (sentenced originally to 2 years, sentence commuted to 7 months, released unconditionally after 5 1/2 months)
Gillam Kerley (final resentencing following guilty plea was to probation, “voluntary public service”, and fine, but had already been imprisoned for 6 months before original jury trial verdict and prison sentence were overturned on appeal because the trial judge had failed to instruct the jury that the government had to prove the defendant knew he was legally required to register)
Ben Sasway (sentenced to 2 1/2 years, released on parole after 6 months)
“It’s not a hate I want to apologize for…. Not hating was giving in, and giving in was a good way to end up like the Attorney General.
None of us wanted that. We knew firsthand what he was all about. He
made his living putting folks in a cage,
and that has always seemed to me like a low way to live.”
(David Harris, “I Shoulda Been Home Yesterday”, Delacorte Press, 1976)
Congressional hearings on the enforcement of draft registration
Judiciary implications of draft registration — 1980
(Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 96th Congress, 2nd session, April 14 and May 22, 1980. See pp. 130-131 for the founding Call for Resistance by the National Resistance Committee, inserted in the hearing record by one of the witnesses; see also pp. 1-3 for the written testimony of Dr. Curtis W. Tarr, former Director of the SSS: “Enforcing a requirement to notify Selective Service of a changed address would be even more difficult than enforcing the duty to register…. I foresee the possibility of evasion by large numbers that that would overwhelm the agencies responsible for law enforcement and the judiciary.”)
Selective Service Prosecutions — 1982
(Oversight hearing before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 97th Congress, 2nd session, July 28, 1982.)
Details and documents about some individual nonregistrants and legal cases:
POEM: Attorney General Edwin Meese III
(by Dan Rutt, 20 August 2015. Blog post includes a poem written in prison in 1987, and more reflections on draft registration resistance.)
When Something Unexpected Happens
(by Rick Jahnkow, on the media frenzy around the indictment of Ben Sasway; from Draft NOtices, newsletter of the San Diego Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft, April-June 2022)
Draft Resistance, 80’s Style
(Profile of 1980s draft resister Ben Sasway by 1960s draft resister and New York Times staff writer David Harris, The New York Times Magazine, 22 August 1982, comparing draft resistance in the 1960s and in the 1980s)
Nothing About the Draft Makes Sense
(by William Greider, Rolling Stone, 30 September 1982. “Registration is not working…. [H]undreds of thousands are not signing up. Collectively, they confront the government with one of the grossest episodes of mass defiance of the law since
Americans decided to drink their way through Prohibition. In this case as well, the only practical solution is repeal.”
See also William Greider’s 1981 Rolling Stone profile of draft registration resisters
Matt Meyer, Matt Nicodemus, and Edward Hasbrouck,
not available online.)
Opponents of draft registration are geared to protest
(by Barbara Rosewicz, UPI, 19 November 1981. “‘We need to do whatever nonviolent acts we can do to make it impossible for the government to single out some of us,’ said Edward Hasbrouck, an organizer from Boston…. If prosecution is initiated against any of the men, Hasbrouck predicted others who have not registered will turn themselves in, ‘demanding that the government prosecute all of us or none of us.’”)
Archival collections including records related to prosecutions of draft resisters in the 1980s:
Edward Hasbrouck papers
(Swarthmore College Peace Collection; includes records of the National Resistance Committee and Mass Open Resistance in the 1980s and after as well some older records inherited from resistance groups at U.C. Berkeley and Stanford U.)
National Coalition Against Registration and the Draft (CARD) archives, 1979-1987
(Personal collection of Gillam Kerley, Albuquerque, NM; includes records of discovery and pleadings in U.S. v. Jacob as well as copies of many government documents disclosed on discovery in U.S. v. Wayte and U.S. v. Sasway)
[Note that nonregistrants weren’t the only draft resisters to be prosecuted. Many more allies who weren’t themselves subject to the requirement to register for the draft, notably including the Boston 18, were prosecuted for sit-ins, blockades, and other draft resistance actions at Post Offices (which were used as draft registration sites), courthouses where nonregistransts were on trial, and Selective Service System offices. The first version of this summary of prosecutions of nonregistrants was compiled by Edward Hasbrouck for the National Resistance Committee, and published in each issue of Resistance News. I’ve only linked to e-mail addresses that were already on the Web, but I’m in touch with some others of the indicted nonregistrants listed above. At least five of the twenty nonregistrants who were prosecuted in the 1980s attended public hearings and events held by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service in 2018 and 2019, including Dan Rutt, Paul Jacob, and Edward Hasbrouck, who all testified that they are still proud of their decision to resist, and would do it again.]
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This page published or republished here 1 January 1983; most recently modified 26 June 2026. This site is maintained by
Edward Hasbrouck. Corrections, contributions (articles, graphics, photos, videos, links, etc.), and feedback are welcomed.
