Case Name: Reverend John M. PERKINS et al., Petitioners-Appellants, v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, Respondent-Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1972-01-14
Citations: 455 F.2d 7
Docket Number: No. 30410
Parties: Reverend John M. PERKINS et al., Petitioners-Appellants, v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, Respondent-Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 455
Pages: 7–61

Head Matter:
Reverend John M. PERKINS et al., Petitioners-Appellants, v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 30410.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Jan. 14, 1972.
Rehearing En Banc Granted June 2, 1972.
John R. Brown, Chief Judge, dissented and filed opinion.
Frank R. Parker, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Constance Iona Slaughter, Lawrence D. Ross, Jackson, Miss., for petitioners-appellants.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., G. Garland Lyell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for respondent-appellee.
Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and COLEMAN and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
COLEMAN, Circuit Judge:
This is a case to which we must apply the provisions of Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 245, and the teachings of Greenwood, Miss. v. Peacock, 384 U.S. 808, 86 S.Ct. 1800, 16 L.Ed.2d 944 (1966).
The appellants were charged in state courts with a variety of misdemeanors such as reckless driving, resisting arrest, interfering with an officer, and the like. The offenses allegedly occurred in Rankin County, the arrests were made in that county, and the charges were brought in that county. Previously, on the same day, the appellants had participated in Simpson County in a peaceable march in support of a "boycott" directed against alleged racial discrimination. They were neither arrested nor charged with an offense in that county. They sought to remove their cases to the United States District Court. After an extensive evidentiary hearing the District Court found as a fact that as to the pending state charges the parties had not been denied a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and that there was nothing to indicate that they could not receive a fair and impartial trial in the state courts. These cases were accordingly remanded and this appeal followed. Considering the credibility choices which are left to the trier of the fact, the findings below are supported by the evidence. Therefore, the judgment remanding the cases for trial in the state courts is affirmed.
Very few, if any, of the appellants were residents of either Simpson or Rankin County. Most of them were students at Tougaloo College, near Jackson. Menden-hall, the county seat of Simpson County, is about forty-five miles southeast of Jackson, on U. S. Highway 49. The Mendenhall boycott, with its accompanying marches or demonstrations, had been going on for about a month. The students had been commuting back and forth to lend their assistance.
All of the appellants but three were arrested on U. S. Highway 49 while returning from Mendenhall to Jackson.
The remaining three were arrested several hours later at the Rankin County Jail in Brandon after they had gone there of their own accord at night, after visiting hours, armed with a shotgun, two rifles, and a pistol.
We consider first the case of those arrested on the highway.
Douglas O. Baldwin, called by the appellants as an adverse witness, was the sole arresting officer. Baldwin is a Patrolman with the Mississippi State Highway Patrol. He testified that he was not in Mendenhall on the day of the later arrests. Prior to the arrests he knew nothing of the identity of the parties. Specifically, he stated as follows:
"When I came from supper that night I got behind two vans. One was a Dodge van, and the front van was weaving in and out all over the road and I got in between them. The front van was making about 45 or 50 miles an hour, and a car was passing us, we were in a four lane, we were in the outside lane. And this car passed us on the inside lane and he liked (sic) to have hit the car and I stopped him [Huemmer] and got him out, and I didn't know he wasn't the only one in the truck."
The Trial Judge then asked Officer Baldwin how many persons were in the van and Baldwin replied:
"Twenty. When I got him out and got him back in my car I saw two Negro boys in the back of it [the van] looking out the back window and I didn't think nothing (sic) about it then, but one of them got out of the truck and started coming back toward my car and I got out of my car and told him to get back in because I was the only Patrolman there and I didn't know what he might do. He went back toward the truck and I looked back again and there were eight or ten or twelve of them out there then, so I started calling for help [on the patrol car radio]. I didn't know what they might try to do."
Baldwin further testified that he had eaten supper that evening and had then resumed his patrolling on Highway 49 North. When asked if he knew that the occupants of the vans were some of the marchers from Mendenhall he replied, "No, Sir, I didn't have any idea. I didn't know that there was but one person in that truck".
The Court then propounded the following question:
"When you arrested these people did you know they were the Mendenhall marchers ?
"Answer: No, Sir."
Baldwin further testified that his reason for stopping the van was because it was weaving as if the driver was drunk, that it crossed the center line several times, once almost hitting another automobile. This was a valid arrest for reckless driving, Barnes v. State, 249 Miss. 482, 162 So.2d 865 (1964); Section 8175 Mississippi Code of 1942.
Baldwin further testified that he had received no radio message to stop the van. It was not until all the individuals had gotten out of the van that he recognized he had stopped people associated with the demonstrations in Mendenhall. When these individuals got out of the van they said "one was not going to be arrested unless all of them were".
After the radio call for help, several highway patrol ears came. Those arrested were transported to Brandon, the county seat of Rankin County.
Douglas Bruce Huemmer, the driver of the van, testified that he had never had any encounter with Officer Baldwin prior to the arrest.
There had been eight marches in Mendenhall, all of them peaceful. None had been arrested during the march which preceded the automobile journey which culminated in the arrests.
The second van, accompanying the Huemmer van, was not halted.
The foregoing testimony is without dispute in the record and supports the finding that these individuals were not arrested because of their exercise of First Amendment, or other, Constitutional rights.
It would thus seem clear, beyond doubt, that these individuals were not entitled to remove their state misdemeanor prosecutions to the federal district court.
This leaves for consideration the situation of the three voluntary nocturnal jailhouse visitors who were not arrested on Highway 49 but who got into a fight at the jail and evidently came off with the worst of the encounter.
The occupants of the van which had not been stopped reported the stopping of the other vehicle to their associates. This resulted in the Reverend Brown, Reverend Perkins, and one Buckley going to the Rankin County jail, armed to the teeth. Huemmer testified that he, and these three men, were then beaten and kicked extensively by state and county officers, that his head and face were shaved, and that a white liquid that smelled like moonshine was poured over his head. He testified that he was verbally abused in jail by several officers who were drinking out of paper cups and who appeared to be drunk, but he was soon released on bail.
A deputy sheriff was called as an adverse witness by appellants. He said that on the night in question he was called to the sheriff's office. When he arrived there he observed the original ar-restees being booked. He was there when Perkins, Brown, and Buckley arrived. There had been no difficulty prior to their arrival but a scuffle developed, limited to the room they were occupying. The deputy was then ordered by the sheriff to cut Huemmer's and Brown's hair, which he did. He testified that he didn't see any vermin in Huemmer's hair but that it was dirty, greasy, and that its removal revealed a scab over his scalp.
Another witness, Manorris, a student at Tougaloo College, one of the march directors in Mendenhall, was in jail when the Perkins trio came in. He was in another room, and could not observe what went on. He did say, nevertheless, that he saw Sheriff Edwards beating Perkins "until the sheriff's shirt tail came out". He also said he saw deputies strike one David Nall. He saw no one strike an officer.
Nall, another Tougaloo student, testified he was struck in the van after he was ordered out of it at the jail. This was verified by none of the others present. He claimed that Sheriff Edwards used a blackjack on Perkins.
Brown, one of the trio which visited the jail after the alarm had been spread, testified that he is a Minister of the Voice of Calvary Bible Institute in Men-denhall. He came to Mississippi from California at the request of Perkins, and has been a leader in the boycott at Men-denhall from the beginning. He stated that when he, Perkins and Buckley went to the Rankin County jail in a red Volkswagen van, the vehicle contained a shotgun and two .22 rifles behind and over the front seat in plain view. He claimed that the reason for carrying the weapons was because of threats which had been made on his life. He further claimed that he and his companions were beaten at the jail for no provocation whatever. He was kept in jail until the next day, charged with disturbing the peace, carrying a concealed weapon, inciting to riot, and resisting arrest.
Perkins is a Minister in Mendenhall and was a leader of the boycott. He first learned of the arrest of Huemmer and the others from the driver of the second van. He then got in his Volkswagen and picked up Brown and Buckley. The three proceeded to the Brandon jail. Besides the weapons already mentioned Perkins admitted that he carried a pistol in the car, as the result, he said, of threats which had been made against him. Perkins contended that the three were arrested for no reason and were personally beaten without any preceding provocation.
Jonathan R. Edwards, the Sheriff of Rankin County, testified that he had already left his office for the day when he received a call to return. Shortly after he returned, the Highway Patrol arrived at the jail with the twenty original ar-restees. He further testified that no violence started until after the arrival of Brown, Perkins, and Buckley, and until after Perkins aimed a blow at the sheriff, which missed. Then a general fracas broke out. There had been no drinking in the sheriff's office. Three guns, a pistol, and several pieces of brick tile were taken from the prisoners. Weapons taken from Huemmer's van included knives, two forks with the middle prongs turned down, and a pistol.
Edwards admitted that he knew a boycott had been in progress in Menden-hall. He also testified that after Huem-mer's hair was cut he poured moonshine whiskey over his head.
No witness testified that Officer Baldwin followed the van from Mendenhall or that he knew when he stopped the van it contained individuals who had been participating in the boycott marches. His testimony that he made a routine traffic arrest is undisputed. Had there been a dispute, the Trial Judge had the responsibility of making the credibility choices, not this Court. The dissenting opinion attaches great weight to the testimony of several individuals who would depict the local officers as subhuman sadists, but this testimony was weighed and rejected by the trier of the fact — his function not ours.
The same rule applies to the altercations at the jail. Perkins, Brown, and Buckley were not lawyers, nor had they been sent for by any of those arrested. They simply chose to visit the jail, after regular visiting hours, armed with a shotgun, two rifles, and a pistol. If Perkins took a swing at the sheriff, as the sheriff swore he did, the credibility of which was for the decision of the District Court, then Perkins should have anticipated that this would meet with more than submissive disapproval. We do not condone the use of excessive force in the arrest and detention of prisoners. Neither do we approve the visitation of indignities upon prisoners. By the same token we are under no duty to extend some kind of left handed judicial approval to the practice of carrying an arsenal of weapons on night time visits to jails or police stations, even if the possession of such weapons is otherwise lawful.
In any event, that is not the issue in this case. The question is whether the activities at the jail ousted the jurisdiction of the state courts to try these three men on misdemeanor charges and, at the same time, conferred jurisdiction on the federal courts to do so.
We think not. Participating in a peaceable march in one county grants no immunity from the enforcement of the law in another county. Neither does such activity authorize persons to approach a local prison in the dark hours of the night, heavily armed. Carrying brick, broken tile, forks, and like weapons is not ordinarily consistent with peaceable activities.
It is important, in our view, that the disturbance at the jail was neither geographically nor periodically incidental to the marches in Mendenhall. In fact, so far as this record shows, no one in Simpson County knew what was going on in the adjoining county of Rankin.
Hence, we hold that the jail visitors were not entitled to have their cases removed to the federal courts. We simply hold that the findings of fact by the District Court are not clearly erroneous and that upon these findings the court committed no error in remanding the appellants to the state courts. If there is in fact no basis for the charges, that deficiency will be exposed by the evidence adduced and a directed verdict of acquittal will necessarily follow as a matter of law.
We, of course, decline to decide this case on the basis of acts committed by others, in other times, in other cases, under other circumstances. We are here required to apply the law to the facts as found by the District Court, governed by the clearly erroneous rule. We indulge in no attainders. There is evidence to support the finding that the original arrests were not prompted by the marches in Mendenhall. Most certainly, an armed visit to the jailhouse in the night time was not a part of the marches. It was purely a secondary episode.
These appellants are due to stand trial in the state courts.
Congress was careful to point this out in 18 U.S.C. § 245(a) (1):
"Nothing in this section shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of Congress to prevent any State, any possession or Commonwealth of the United States, or the District of Columbia, from exercising jurisdiction over any offense over which it would have jurisdiction in the absence of this section, nor shall anything in this section be construed as depriving State and local law enforcement authorities of responsibility for prosecuting acts that may be violations of this section and that are violations of State and local law
18 U.S.C. § 245 concluded:
"Nothing in this section shall be construed so as to deter any law enforcement officer from lawfully carrying out the duties of his office; and no law enforcement officer shall be considered to be in violation of this section for lawfully carrying out the duties of his office or lawfully enforcing ordinances and laws of the United States, [etc.] "
We conclude with this observation: Under Greenwood, Miss. v. Peacock, supra, these cases are not removable to the federal courts.
In this respect, Greenwood, Miss. v. Peacock was not affected by the enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 245. See People of State of New York v. Horelick, 2 Cir., 1970, 424 F.2d 697, cert. denied 398 U.S. 939, 90 S.Ct. 1839, 26 L.Ed.2d 273; Hill v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 3 Cir., 1971, 439 F.2d 1016, cert. denied 404 U.S. 985, 92 S.Ct. 445, 30 L.Ed.2d 370.
The judgment of the District Court is
Affirmed.