The Law: Winner If Not Champ

He had lost every previous round, but unlike his fights in the ring, this time only the final round counted. Thus, after a four-year legal scrap, Muhammad Ali last week won a unanimous decision on points. The Supreme Court reversed his 1967 conviction for refusing induction on the grounds that the Government had wrongly attacked the basis of his beliefs.

Ali had been refused conscientious-objector status by his draft board. When he went to his draft appeal board, the Justice Department advised it that he was not sincere and that his beliefs, based on the teachings of the Nation of Islam (more...

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