Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/369/31.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 19:15:33+00:00

Document:
1. Appellants lack standing to enjoin criminal prosecutions under Mississippi's breach-of-peace statutes, since they do not allege that they have been prosecuted or threatened with prosecution there-under; but, as passengers using the segregated transportation facilities, they have standing to enforce their rights to nonsegregated treatment. Pp. 32-33.
2. That no State may require racial segregation of interstate or intrastate transportation facilities has been so well settled that it is foreclosed as a litigable issue, and a three-judge court was not required to pass on this case under 28 U.S.C. 2281. P. 33.
3. Since this case is not one required to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges under 28 U.S.C. 2281, it cannot be brought to this Court on direct appeal under 1253; but this Court has jurisdiction to determine the authority of the Court below and to make such corrective order as may be appropriate to the enforcement of the limitation which that section imposes. P. 34.
4. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court for expeditions disposition, in the light of this opinion, of appellants' claims of right to nonsegregated transportation service. P. 34.
Constance Baker Motley, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III and R. Jess Brown for appellants.
Dugas Shands and Edward L. Cates, Assistant Attorneys General of Mississippi, and Charles Clark, Special Assistant Attorney General, for Patterson, Thomas H. Watkins for the City of Jackson, Mississippi, et al., and Junior O'Mara for the Greyhound Corporation et al., appellees.
Appellants, Negroes living in Jackson, Mississippi, brought this civil rights action, 28 U.S.C. 1343 (3), in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, seeking temporary and permanent injunctions to enforce their constitutional rights to nonsegregated service in interstate and intrastate transportation, alleging that such rights had been denied them under color of state statutes, municipal ordinances, and state custom and usage. * A three-judge District Court was convened, 28 U.S.C. 2281, and, Circuit Judge Rives dissenting, abstained from further proceedings pending construction of the challenged laws by the state courts. 199 F. Supp. 595. Plaintiffs have appealed, 28 U.S.C. 1253; N. A. A. C. P. v. Bennett, 360 U.S. 471 . We denied a motion to stay the prosecution of a number of criminal cases pending disposition of this appeal. 368 U.S. 346 .
Appellants lack standing to enjoin criminal prosecutions under Mississippi's breach-of-peace statutes, since they do not allege that they have been prosecuted or threatened with prosecution under them. They cannot [369 U.S. 31, 33] represent a class of whom they are not a part. McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 235 U.S. 151, 162 -163. But as passengers using the segregated transportation facilities they are aggrieved parties and have standing to enforce their rights to nonsegregated treatment. Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80, 93 ; Evers v. Dwyer, 358 U.S. 202 .
This case is therefore not one "required . . . to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges," 28 U.S.C. 1253, and therefore cannot be brought here on direct appeal. However, we have jurisdiction to determine the authority of the court below and "to make such corrective order as may be appropriate to the enforcement of the limitations which that section imposes," Gully v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 292 U.S. 16, 18 ; Oklahoma Gas & Elec. Co. v. Oklahoma Packing Co., 292 U.S. 386, 392 ; Phillips v. United States, 312 U.S. 246, 254 . Accordingly, we vacate the judgment and remand the case to the District Court for expeditious disposition, in light of this opinion, of the appellants' claims of right to unsegregated transportation service.

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