Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/468/639/283929/
Timestamp: 2019-10-16 02:22:39
Document Index: 614492537

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2000', '§ 1443', '§ 1443', '§ 2000', '§ 2000', '§ 2000', '§ 2000']

Golden Frinks et al., Appellants, v. State of North Carolina, Appellee.george Kirby, Appellant, v. State of North Carolina, Appellee, 468 F.2d 639 (4th Cir. 1972) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Fourth Circuit › 1972 › Golden Frinks et al., Appellants, v. State of North Carolina, Appellee.george Kirby, Appellant, v. S...
Golden Frinks et al., Appellants, v. State of North Carolina, Appellee.george Kirby, Appellant, v. State of North Carolina, Appellee, 468 F.2d 639 (4th Cir. 1972)
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit - 468 F.2d 639 (4th Cir. 1972) Argued May 30, 1972. Decided Oct. 4, 1972
Golden Frinks and George Kirby appeal from orders of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, 333 F. Supp. 169, remanding to the North Carolina courts prosecutions against them which they had removed to the federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1443(1). We think the district court correctly found that their petitions did not allege facts sufficient to sustain removal, or to require a hearing on removability, and affirm.
We wholeheartedly agree with petitioners that they have a federal right not to be prosecuted because of their race for peacefully seeking to enjoy public accommodations. 42 U.S.C.A. Secs. 2000a(a) & 2000a-2(c); Hamm v. Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306, 85 S. Ct. 384, 13 L. Ed. 2d 300 (1964); Georgia v. Rachel, 384 U.S. 780, 86 S. Ct. 1783, 16 L. Ed. 2d 925 (1966). But we also agree with the State that there is no federally protected right to engage in a riot.
Greenwood v. Peacock, 384 U.S. 808, 826-827, 86 S. Ct. 1800, 1812, 16 L. Ed. 2d 944 (1966).
Peacock, supra, 384 U.S. at 832-833, 86 S. Ct. at 1815.
This case is controlled by Peacock rather than Rachel. Peacock, supra, 384 U.S. at 828, 86 S. Ct. at 1812, held:
Rachel represented direct confrontation between the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the trespass laws of the State of Georgia. Georgia law made it a criminal trespass offense to refuse to leave facilities of public accommodation when asked to do so by the owner or person in charge. The federal law invalidated the Georgia trespass statute, at least where the request to leave was invidiously motivated, and substituted "a right for a crime." Hamm, supra, 379 U.S. at 314, 85 S. Ct. 384, 13 L. Ed. 2d 300. Because the Georgia trespass law was void in an invidious context, the federal rights of those charged with its violation could have been denied by the mere institution of charges. As Hamm made clear, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects persons who refuse to obey an order to leave public accommodations, not only from conviction in state courts, but from prosecution in those courts.
A hearing was justified in Rachel by the great probability that a federal right would be denied if the prosecution were not removed. Such probability does not exist here. The 1964 Civil Rights Act does not in any sense void the anti-riot laws of North Carolina. If these petitioners' federal rights are in fact being denied, the denial is not "manifest in a formal expression of state law." Rachel, supra, 384 U.S. at 803, 86 S. Ct. at 1796.
If these petitioners "are being prosecuted on baseless charges solely because of their race, then there has been an outrageous denial of their federal rights, and the federal courts are far from powerless to redress the wrongs done to them." Peacock, supra, 384 U.S. at 828, 86 S. Ct. at 1813. But removal is not the remedy, see Peacock, supra at 828-830, 86 S. Ct. 1800, 16 L. Ed. 2d 944, unless we can clearly predict from the operation of an explicit state law that federal rights will inevitably be denied them, and that we cannot do.
12. The warrants for arrest and attempted prosecutions of petitioners as heretofore alleged by respondent State of North Carolina is an attempt to punish petitioners for the exercise or attempt to exercise a right and privilege secured by Section 201 of Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 United States Code Section 2000a(a), and accordingly is specifically prohibited by Section 203 of Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-2(c).
The two men filed removal petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 1443(1),1 alleging that the prosecutions were an attempt by the state to punish them for having exercised or attempted to exercise rights and privileges secured by Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.2 They deny being present at the stores at the time alleged, and alternatively contend that if present, they were nonviolent and did not engage in any riot.
The question here becomes the important one under 28 U.S.C. § 1443(1) which this court expressly left open in South Carolina v. Moore, 447 F.2d 1067 (4 Cir. 1971), "whether or not a district court is properly required to resolve such a factual issue [as violence] when considering a removal petition, or whether it may confine its view to the allegations of the state charge if they unequivocally charge violent conduct * * *," supra, 447 F.2d at 1071, n. 9. Today, this question is answered, but in a manner which accords inadvisable and unnecessary deference to state prosecutions.
The majority would have a district court summarily dismiss a removal petition without an evidentiary hearing whenever the state has alleged a crime of which violence is an element. A petitioner is thereby denied the opportunity to vindicate his contention that, by means of a bogus prosecution, the state is attempting to mete out punishment for the exercise or attempted exercise of rights secured by the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The state prosecutor is permitted to attach a convenient tag to a defendant's conduct, and this labeling, rather than what the individual was actually doing, becomes the test of removability. Such a result, according to the majority, is dictated by Greenwood v. Peacock, 384 U.S. 808, 86 S. Ct. 1800, 16 L. Ed. 2d 944 (1966).
Respectfully, I disagree. Georgia v. Rachel, 384 U.S. 780, 86 S. Ct. 1783, 16 L. Ed. 2d 925 (1966), and not Peacock is controlling here. The petitioners in Peacock and Rachel relied on entirely different rights. The Supreme Court in Peacock recognized that the petitioners there were bottoming their arguments on rights supposedly guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. Peacock, supra, 384 U.S. at 811, n. 3, 86 S. Ct. 1800, 16 L. Ed. 2d 944. In the instant case, as in Rachel, the petitioners alleged violation of rights guaranteed by the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This latter legislation, unlike the voting rights acts, contains a specific prohibition against state action that "punish [es] or attempt [s] to punish."4 This significant difference was noted by the Supreme Court in Peacock itself. The Court there declared that "Section 203(c) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 * * * explicitly provides that no person shall 'punish or attempt to punish any persons for exercising or attempting to exercise any right or privilege' secured by the public accommodations section of the Act. None of the federal statutes invoked by the defendants in the present case contains any such provision. See note 3 and note 7 supra." Peacack, supra, 384 U.S. at 827 n. 25, 86 S. Ct. at 1812 (emphasis added).
The Supreme Court in Rachel established a two-pronged test for removal under Section 1443(1), requiring that petitioners demonstrate "both that the right upon which they rely is a 'right under any law providing for * * * equal civil rights,' and that they are 'denied or cannot enforce' that right in the courts of [the state]." 384 U.S. at 788, 86 S. Ct. at 1788. The first prong of this test is satisfied since the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 creates rights "under any law providing for * * * equal civil rights." Section 203(c) enjoins "any attempt to punish" persons for exercising these rights. Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306, 311, 85 S. Ct. 384, 389, 13 L. Ed. 2d 300 (1964), has interpreted this section to include within its prohibition prosecution in a state court. Hence, if the petitioners' allegations in this case are found to be true and the state is indeed attempting to punish them for exercising rights guaranteed by the public accommodations section, then there is a "denial of equal civil rights," the two prongs of the Rachel test are satisfied, and removal is in order.
The existence of a conflict between allegations in a removal petition and those in the criminal indictment is a rational ground for holding a hearing to resolve the conflict; it is certainly no reason for dismissing the petition out of hand. Only an evidentiary hearing can insure that the state is not unduly interfering with specially protected civil rights. For "the mere pendency of prosecutions [where such rights are involved] enables the federal court to make the clear prediction that the defendants will be 'denied or cannot enforce in the courts of [the] State' the right to be free of any 'attempt to punish' them for protected activity. It is no answer in these circumstances that the defendants might eventually prevail in the state court. The burden of having to defend the prosecution is itself the denial of a right explicitly conferred by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as construed in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill." Rachel, supra, 384 U.S. at 805, 86 S. Ct. at 1797. Nor can it be said that the interposition of a hearing would erode the state's prosecution. If the state can establish a just basis for its prosecution, the removal petition will be denied and the case will be remanded for trial in the state court.
"The petition for removal [must] be determined not by the appellation or euphemism of the charge but by what the movant [petitioner] was actually doing." Walker v. Georgia, 417 F.2d 1, 5 (5 Cir. 1969). Whether the alleged offense be trespass as in Rachel, or a crime encompassing an element of violence such as aggravated battery, State of Louisiana v. Perkins, 335 F. Supp. 366 (E.D. La. 1971), the Fifth Circuit holds a hearing to determine whether or not the charge is spurious, intended only to punish the defendants for exercising protected rights. Walker, supra; Whatley v. City of Vidalia, 399 F.2d 521 (5 Cir. 1965), Wyche v. State of Louisiana, 394 F.2d 927 (5 Cir. 1967). I think that Section 203(c) interdicts "attempts to punish" and mandates an evidentiary hearing to defendants claiming that they are being prosecuted for the exercise of rights under the public accommodations section. Any other reading of the statute would emasculate the immunization clause of Section 203(c). Unless there is an evidentiary hearing, the defendant charged with violent conduct will always be forced to submit to state prosecution to vindicate his Title II rights. Such a practice permits the characterization given by the prosecution to the conduct in question to become the touchstone for removal or non-removal.
It is true, as has been suggested, that the defendant may ultimately prevail in the state courts, or that he has other federal remedies including direct review by the Supreme Court or habeas corpus. But the burden of having to defend a prosecution is in itself a denial of a right immunized by Section 203(c). Rachel, supra, 384 U.S. at 780, 86 S. Ct. 1783, 16 L. Ed. 2d 925.
42 U.S.C. §§ 2000a to 2000a-6
42 U.S.C. § 2000a provides that:
Section 203(c) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-2(c) declares that "No person shall punish or attempt to punish any person for exercising or attempting to exercise any right or privilege secured by section 2000a or 2000a-1 of this title."
As a result of further study of the Peacock opinion, we are not so sure as a year ago, New York v. Davis, supra, 411 F.2d at 754, n. 3, that civil rights statutes that ban intimidating, threatening or coercing are to be equated, for purposes of removal under Sec. 1443(1), with a statute that prohibits punishing or attempting to punish, language that reads directly on the state. As already noted, one of the two significant points of distinction taken in Peacock was that "no federal law confers immunity from state prosecution on such charges," 384 U.S. at 827, 86 S. Ct. at 1812. Justice Stewart annotated this with a reference to the provision in Sec. 203(c) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-2 (c), that no person shall "punish or attempt to punish any person" for exercising rights to public accommodations, a statement that "none of the federal statutes invoked by the defendants in the present case contains any such provision," and a cross-reference to notes 3 and 7. Note 3 referred to the provisions of the Voting Rights Acts of 1957 and 1965 described in the text, with a "See also" citation to the latter. Commentators apparently believe, although with regret, that the Court meant to confine the Rachel basis for removal to "unique" statutes, see 384 U.S. at 826, 86 S. Ct. 1800, which in terms prohibit prosecution. [Citations omitted.] On the other hand, it is arguable that citation in a footnote would be a rather elliptical way to decide such an important question, and that the limitation of removal to statutes using the words "punish or attempt to punish" is confined to cases like Peacock where the conduct was not within the protection of a federal civil rights act when it occurred. We leave the question open.