In the case of Parisi v. Davidson et al., 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a soldier has a right to seek judicial review of his application for conscientious objector status before he can be court-martialed for refusing orders on grounds of conscience. The plaintiff, Joseph J. Parisi, was an army private who had applied for discharge as a conscientious objector but was denied by military authorities and subsequently ordered to Vietnam. He refused these orders and filed suit in federal district court seeking relief from being forced into combat service while his claim was pending review in civilian courts; however, this request was also denied leading him to appeal up to the Supreme Court. The high court held that due process required that soldiers have access to civilian courts before facing potential criminal charges within the military system related directly with their claims as conscientious objectors - effectively establishing important protections for those serving in armed forces who may hold sincere religious or moral objections against war or violence.

In the dissenting opinion for Parisi v. Davidson, Justice Harlan argued that the majority's decision to allow a soldier to bring his habeas corpus petition directly in district court without first exhausting all available military remedies was incorrect. He believed this ruling undermined the longstanding principle of comity between civilian and military courts, which requires respect for each other's roles and functions. In his view, soldiers should be required to exhaust all internal military judicial processes before seeking relief from civilian courts unless they can demonstrate that these processes are inadequate or ineffective. By allowing Parisi to bypass these procedures, he felt the Court had overstepped its bounds and interfered with matters best left to the discretion of Congress and military authorities.