Court Opinion

ID: 9463878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:18:47.310893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:19.940146
License: Public Domain

JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The appellant brought an action invoking 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1981, 1982 and 1983. The district court properly treated the action as habeas corpus and properly dismissed it because state remedies had not been exhausted as required by 28 U.S.G.A. § 2254. After the judgment of the district court was entered and while this appeal was pending, state remedies were exhausted, or so it is represented. Instead of affirming the decision of the district court, the majority of this Court vacates the judgment and remands to expand the record and encompass proceedings subsequent to the judgment from which this appeal was taken and while the appeal was pending. This contravenes the rule that an appellate court should “consider nothing save what is stated in the record sent up from the trial court.” Drake v. General Finance Corp. of La., 5th Cir. 1941, 119 F.2d 588, 589, A number of the authorities so holding are cited in Judge Wisdom’s opinion in Smith v. United States, 5th Cir. 1965, 343 F.2d 539. “This appellate court ‘can only take the record as it finds it, and cannot add thereto, or go behind, beyond, or outside it, and it will not prosecute an independent inquiry’ as to what happened in the lower court, not ruled upon by the district judge.” Brookins v. United States, 5th Cir. 1968, 397 F.2d 261, 262.
I cannot agree that judicial economy requires the scrapping of established procedures.