Judge May Call For New Lottery

There is some chance that all the hair-pulling, nail-chewing, and suicide contemplating over the Dec. 1 lottery was for nothing. It may have to be held all over again.

A Wisconsin Federal judge has said he sees a serious gap between the random selection ordered by President Nixon and the actual result of the drawing.

District Judge James Doyle of Madison refused to dismiss a legal challenge to the lottery made on Dec, 22 by David S. Stedolsky, a graduate student in computer planning at the University of Wisconsin, and 12 other young men.

Doyle refrained, however, from issuing the temporary restraining order that would bar the Selective Service system from drafting anyone by the original lottery list because he believed the evidence to be too limited as yet for such a serious step.

While the average of numbers for any month should be 183, the average numbers for the first six months of the year areall higher than 183 while those of the last six months are all below it.

"I find there is a substantial discrepancy between a perfect selection on the one hand and the selection which resulted from the Dec. 1 drawing on the other," Doyle said.

Regardless of Doyle's final decision, the new draft system is causing a great deal of confusion. Many men in the top one-third of the drawing, feeling safe, have turned in their deferments.

But many state selective service directors have warned that the vulnerability of all men who become available is very high regardless of their sequence number.

"It would be perfectly ridiculous to tell someone with No. 365 that he will not be called," New York state director ColJohn Brokaw said.

In another draft-related decision. the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, ruled Jan. 2 that it is unconstitutional to change a person's draft status to 1A because he has turned in or burned his draft card.