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Larry Gara

Released
Date of birth:16. 05. 1922
Date of death:23. 11. 2019
Age:97† Deceased
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:1940s
State:Ohio
Time Imprisoned:
3 Years 7 Months
Support
Anti-War
Larry Gara

Biography

Larry Gara was later a distinguished pacifist historian. He refused to register for the draft in the Second World War and served a federal prison term as a young resister. In 1949 he was prosecuted again — this time for counseling a Bluffton College student to refuse to register — and convicted under the Selective Service Act, one of the most prominent draft-counseling cases of the postwar years. He spent decades afterward teaching history and writing on nonviolence at Wilmington College.

Cases

Charges: Refusal to register
Incarcerated: 1943
Sentence: Federal prison term
Convicted: Yes
Charges: Counseling refusal of draft registration — Selective Service Act (1949)
Sentence: Sentenced to prison for draft counseling; served about fifteen months. Imposed term was eighteen months, as explicitly reported in the contemporary1951Historian article ReligiousFreedominAmericanHistory. This is not eighteen months actually served. The SixthCircuit opinion independently identifies the counseling conviction under50U.S.C.App.462(a), affirmedNovember28,1949; appeal disposition is not a jail admission or discharge date. Exact custody endpoints remain unresolved. Sources: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-6563.1951.tb00126.x ; https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/178/38/16056/
Convicted: Yes