Court Opinion

ID: 9451282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:12:24.521785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:38.787059
License: Public Domain

GRIFFIN B. BELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. Future historians concerned with the demise of our system of federalism may well consider this decision a significant step in that loss. It is an even sharper departure from that system than was the federal retention of jurisdiction in Rachel v. State of Georgia, 5 Cir., 1965, 342 F.2d 336, cert, granted, October 11, 1965, 382 U.S. 808, 86 S.Ct. 39, 15 L.Ed.2d 58. All that is involved here is a state case not yet considered by the state courts although an available remedy there awaits appellant. No state relief whatever has been sought. The Georgia courts are not only deprived of the comity privilege to pass on appellant’s claim but the decision is in the face of an express congressional interdiction that such relief as the majority has granted “ * * * shall not be granted * * * ” because there has been no exhaustion of a presently available state court remedy. 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254; and see Fay v. Noia, 1963, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837.
The ratio decidendi of the majority appears to rest mainly on dire circumstances rather than law but appellant would suffer no loss of liberty while the state court had his claim under consideration. Thus the decision is not only without warrant in law; it is also unnecessary. Appellant has double protection of his right to bail. He is at liberty on bail by order of the federal district court. The Georgia Supreme Court is also careful to preserve the right to bail. For example, state habeas corpus was the procedural vehicle used to gain admission to bail In another civil rights case arising out of the state trial court where this case had its genesis. Jones v. Grimes, Sheriff, 1964, 219 Ga. 585, 134 S.E.2d 790. Moreover, the district court at our direction could continue appellant on bail while he seeks relief in the state court system.
By way of summation, my view is that Georgia has a court system wherein the constitutional right asserted by appellant may be vindicated and her courts should not be avoided or placed in limbo on an ad hoc basis.
The circuitous reasoning by which the majority finds power and by which it disregards any semblance of comity is, I think, invalid. It goes like this. There was no available state remedy at the time the petition for habeas corpus was filed in the district court; thus the district court had jurisdiction. Although the district court denied the petition on the grounds that it was without merit, the supervention of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the case of Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 1964, 379 U.S. 306, 85 S.Ct. 384, 13 L.Ed.2d 300, appear to have infused merit into appellant’s case while it was on appeal. Even if the infused principle was available to appellant in the state courts, nevertheless, the federal district court and now this court has jurisdiction because of the non-meritorious *101claim asserted in the district court. This reasoning avoids the fact that the basis and the only basis of the relief now afforded appellant by the majority is the supervening Civil Rights Act and the Hamm case, supra; relief that may be obtained in the first instance in the state courts.
The opinion of the majority also hinges on the waiver by the Attorney General of Georgia of any right the state courts may have to- adjudicate the questions asserted by appellant and apparently, of any restriction this court may have on its power by 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254, supra. Cf. Warren v. Conner, No. 21,853, now pending in this court, where there is no waiver in a case involving the same question but which was tried in a different state court. This cavalier approach by the office of the Attorney General of Georgia is a new concept in the division of jurisdiction between federal and state courts under the doctrine of comity. It is also a novel expansion of the federal statute governing the power of federal courts to grant habeas corpus to state prisoners. § 2254, supra.
Now the lawyers will decide which court may act. I do not see how we can manage the dual system of courts— federal and state — which are inherent in our federalism on any such basis. Comity, as I understand it, is a form of court self-discipline designed to limit intrusion by the courts of one of the systems into the affairs of courts of the other, and it alone should carry the day here. However, Congress, perhaps unwilling to rely on the exercise of self-discipline by federal courts in the habeas corpus area because of the balance that is drawn in such cases between state and federal laws as well as state and federal courts, and because problems arising from the maintenance of local order are involved, has expressly proscribed the power of federal courts. See § 2254, supra, footnote 4 to majority opinion, together with the gloss of Fay v. Noia, supra. As noted, this statute speaks in terms of “* * * shall not grant * * * ” and it contains no provision whereby counsel or a party may invest the court with authority to grant the writ. This concept of waiver, now that it has received the imprimatur of the court, is freighted with the seeds for creating grave uncertainty in the state judicial process, and ultimately, to severely impair the state court system as it applies to criminal justice.
Our approach should be. to first determine whether there is a state procedural remedy presently available to appellant to claim his right under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as given retroactive application in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 1964, 379 U.S. 306, 85 S.Ct. 384, 13 L.Ed.2d 300, not to be further punished. This right springs only from the supervention of the Act, and the Hamm case, after the state court trial and after the district court decision denying the relief sought. This is the basis which the majority finds for granting the relief. Cf. Dilworth v. Riner, 5 Cir., 1965, 343 F.2d 226. The question then is which court, federal or state, should now afford appellant relief on this basis. The Georgia Supreme Court has already given effect in eases on direct appeal to Hamm and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bolton v. State of Georgia, 1965, 220 Ga, 632, 140 S.E.2d 866. May rights arising thereunder also be claimed in the Georgia courts by way of habeas corpus?
In this connection, and preliminarily, we turn our attention to the question of whether appellant may avail himself of the remedy of state habeas corpus and continue at liberty on bond. The Georgia Supreme Court has answered this question in the affirmative. A Georgia court will hear and decide a petition for habeas corpus on its merits even where the applicant for habeas corpus may have been improperly admitted to bond. Sanders v. McHan, 1949, 206 Ga. 155, 56 S.E.2d 281. See also Soviero v. State, 1964, 220 Ga. 119, 137 S.E.2d 471. Here appellant, having been admitted to bond by the District Court, is not presently incarcerated but he is in the constructive *102custody of the sheriff of Fulton County, Georgia.
And as we recently stated, the current law of exhaustion is that an applicant for the writ must exhaust his state remedies before applying for federal habeas corpus unless the state remedy is foreclosed, or is so ineffective or inadequate or uncertain as to amount to an absence of state remedy. Whippler v. Balkcom, 5 Cir., 1965, 342 F.2d 388; Smart v. Balkcom, 5 Cir., 1965, 352 F.2d 502. Proceeding then to the state remedy question, we are aware of the narrowness of the scope of habeas corpus in Georgia. Cobb v. Balkcom, 5 Cir., 1964, 339 F.2d 95; Whippler v. Balkcom, supra; Smart v. Balkcom, supra. It is available when the trial court was without jurisdiction or where it exceeded its jurisdiction in making the order, rendering judgment or passing sentence to the extent that the order, judgment or sentence is void. Deprivation of counsel is treated as rendering the judgment void. See Whippier and Smart, supra. A sentence which exceeds the jurisdiction of the court is void. See Smart, supra, and Balkcom v. Defore, 1964, 219 Ga. 641, 135 S.E.2d 425. But the question before us, and which should be before the Georgia courts on remand from the fact that the state remedy was not exhausted, does not fall within the scope of the jurisdiction of the trial court. It takes the nature of illegal detention or restraint.
This stems from the fact that § 203(c) of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides that “[n]o person shall * * * punish or attempt to punish any person for exercising or attempting to exercise any right or privilege secured by section 201 * * § 201, of course, is the equal enjoyment of public accommodations section. Cf. Dilworth v. Riner, supra. A situation where a prisoner contends that he has executed the sentence imposed and is being illegally detained is analogous. The remedy of habeas corpus is clearly available in Georgia in such a situation. See Goble v. Reese, 1959, 214 Ga. 697, 107 S.E.2d 175. There the court was satisfied to rely for jurisdiction on the Georgia statute governing who may “sue out” a writ of habeas corpus:
“Any person restrained of his liberty under any pretext whatever * * * may sue out a writ of ha-beas corpus to inquire into the legality of such restraint.” Ga.Code § 50-101.
Also somewhat analogous are cases involving the use of habeas corpus to determine the legality of the restraint of a person incarcerated for allegedly breaching a condition of a pardon. See Pippin v: Johnson, 1941, 192 Ga. 450, 15 S.E.2d 712, Pappas v. Aldredge, 1941, 192 Ga. 482, 15 S.E.2d 718. In the second of these cases, Pappas was convicted on a charge of operating a lottery and sentenced to imprisonment. While his conviction was pending on review and he was at liberty under a supersedeas bond, he procured a pardon and dismissed his appeal. The pardon was conditioned upon his paying a fine of $50.00 and obeying all of the laws of Georgia, or of any other state and of the United States. The pardon reserved in the governor the right to revoke the same at his pleasure. Having failed to pay the $50.00 fine, the sentencing court issued a rule on the question of whether his supersedeas bond should be forfeited. He failed to appear and his bond was forfeited. He then tendered the $50.00 fine to the sheriff who refused the tender. He was taken into custody and brought a habeas corpus proceeding against the sheriff. His contention on the habeas hearing was that he turned the money over to his attorney with which to pay the fine, and that the attorney failed to pay it. On the testimony of the attorney that this was not so, the trial court entered judgment remanding Pappas to the custody of the sheriff. This judgment was affirmed on appeal, but the case, as does the Pippin case, stands for the proposition that the legality of detention or restraint may be tested by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Thus Georgia has a presently available remedy for appellant and it should be utilized.
*103Elan may have its place in some areas of life; it is hardly a basis for maintaining the delicate dual court aspect of federalism. It is not compatible with stability in the law; something devoutly to be desired in a country dedicated to ordered liberty.