Case Name: Major POUNDS, Nathaniel Green, and Warren Evans, Individually, and on behalf of all those similarly situated v. Harold E. THEARD, Sr., Warden of the House of Detention
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1970-02-02
Citations: 230 So. 2d 861
Docket Number: No. 3730
Parties: Major POUNDS, Nathaniel Green, and Warren Evans, Individually, and on behalf of all those similarly situated v. Harold E. THEARD, Sr., Warden of the House of Detention.
Judges: Before SAMUEL, REDMANN and BARNETTE, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 230
Pages: 861–864

Head Matter:
Major POUNDS, Nathaniel Green, and Warren Evans, Individually, and on behalf of all those similarly situated v. Harold E. THEARD, Sr., Warden of the House of Detention.
No. 3730.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Feb. 2, 1970.
Richard A. Buckley and Robert Glass, New Orleans, for plaintiffs-appellees.
Alvin J. Liska, City Atty., Maurice B. Firedman, Richard C. Seither, and Joseph J. Gendusa, Jr., Asst. City Attys., for defendant-appellant.
Before SAMUEL, REDMANN and BARNETTE, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Judge.
The warden of the city jail of New Orleans appeals a mandamus ordering him to end racial segregation in cells and cell blocks and in prisoner work squads, and to include for consideration for work petitioners and other prisoners whose sentences bear the notation "double time not permitted", because of which the warden had been refusing to assign work to those prisoners since work ordinarily earns double time against a sentence.
Our Jurisdiction
First we question our own jurisdiction.
Although the parties have ignored it, we feel we cannot ignore the fact that a city ordinance, Code of the City of New Orleans § 50-6, apparently unrepealed and not otherwise abrogated, requires of the work squads that "Each squad shall be made up wholly of white males or wholly of colored males". Part of the judgment appealed from obliges the warden to disregard race in forming squads. We therefore are obliged to inquire whether we have jurisdiction, since if this case is one "in which an ordinance of a municipal corporation has been de- dared unconstitutional", it is appealable to the Supreme Court, LSA-Const. art. 7 § 10, and not to this court, art. 7 § 29.
The ordinance is nowhere mentioned in the record on appeal. Still, the obvious although unexpressed basis for the trial court's order to, in effect, disobey the ordinance is that such racial segregation, simply on the grounds of race, violates U.S.Const. Amend. XIV; Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333, 88 S.Ct. 994, 19 L.Ed.2d 1212 (1968); see also La.Const. art. 1 § 6 requiring justice administered without partiality. It may fairly be said that since the petition plainly attacks the practice commanded by the ordinance, the trial court's judgment plainly implies that the ordinance is unconstitutional; yet the ordinance is not "declared" unconstitutional by the judgment in express terms.
If the ordinance had been expressly declared unconstitutional and appellant had not argued its constitutionality, the Supreme Court would presumably have treated that issue as abandoned and transferred the appeal to this court, as it did in State ex rel. Chehardy v. New Orleans Parkway Comm'n, 215 La. 779, 41 So.2d 678 (1949). Under the 1958 amendment of art. 7 § 10 that court has jurisdiction over all issues of a case only if the case is "properly appealed" to it on some issue appeal-able to it. Assuming an implied holding of unconstitutionality might authorize an appeal to and vest jurisdiction in the Supreme Court, we conclude that appellant, who testified he intended to integrate anyway, has waived any entitlement to argue the constitutionality of the ordinance, and has not "properly appealed" and now cannot appeal that issue to the Supreme Court, and we therefore have jurisdiction over all other aspects of the case.
Exceptions
Second, we consider the various overruled exceptions which appellant argues should have been maintained.
Lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter is claimed on the theory that petitioners' prime complaint is against the notation on their sentences disallowing early release, and that this action is really an attempt to set aside an allegedly illegal sentence of the Municipal Court, over which the Criminal District Court has the appellate jurisdiction, Const. art. 7 § 94; see also LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 882. This exception was properly overruled because (the question of entitlement to early release having been eliminated from the case by maintaining another exception) the legality of the sentence is not relevant to the remaining questions presented by the petition, namely whether the notation justified the warden's refusing to allow petitioners to work, and whether racial segregation existed and was to be ended.
For the same reason the exceptions objecting to lack of jurisdiction over the person of, and nonjoinder of, the Municipal Court judge were correctly overruled. That judge and his sentence have no legal relation to the matters decided against appellant by the district court.