Court Opinion

ID: 9450136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:36:08.050363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:09.799828
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
First, although this is nominally an appeal from a denial of a preliminary injunction, I think this is a case which should be treated as though the “trial” on the permanent injunction had been held. The facts concerning the underlying occurrence will be the same. All of such facts were fully developed. Nothing new will be added. This approach reflects the view many times declared by this Court that where a further full trial is needed to develop the critical facts, the Trial Court should proceed *580with the hearing on the merits even though appeal has been taken from the grant or denial of a preliminary injunction. United States v. Lynd, 5 Cir., 1963, 321 F.2d 26; 5 Cir., 1962, 301 F.2d 818; Wooten v. Ohler, 5 Cir., 1962, 303 F.2d 759, 760; Barnwell Drilling Co. v. Sun Oil Co., 5 Cir., 1962, 300 F.2d 298. Where there is really nothing more to try, the product of the initial and only trial ought not to acquire any artificial immunity because it nominally is a preliminary, not permanent, ruling.
Second, I need not quarrel with the facts found or the inferences to be drawn. In their naked, raw, undisputed form, they are shocking. The Sheriff of this Mississippi County beat up a Negro at the entrance to the voter registration office while two other Negroes — •who were inside trying to register — were being struck by two of the Sheriff’s deputies.
Worse, from the witness stand, the Sheriff, a large, tall person in contrast to his small victim, openly boasted that “I struck [Grim] just as many times and fast as I could.” It was no act of self defense. His words made it plain that it was brutal retaliation for Grim’s insistence that he was entitled to be there with his friends who were attempting to register. The Sheriff went on to testify: “ * * * and when I slapped him down the first time, the next time I hit him I knocked him down and he fell here and I got in on him, and I don’t know how many times I hit him, just as many as I could in the short interval of time I had * * The Sheriff’s purpose was clear and his method effective: “I hit him and kept on hitting him * * *. And if he hadn't run I would have kept on hitting him.” His tools were likewise ample. ■ Rejecting the Sheriff’s denial that he used anything but his hands, the Judge found that the “Sheriff struck Grim * * * with a black jack.”
More than that, the Sheriff’s story embraced that of his Deputy J. B. Col-lum whose testimony was branded as outright perjury by the District Judge. Witness after witness identified Deputy Collum as one of the persons who beat up Davis and Carr. Yet, as the District Judge found, “He [Collum] had the audacity to deny even being present when the Negroes were assaulted * * Of this the Judge judicially declared, “It it perfectly apparent to the Court that this deputy falsified such statement without any excuse or justification therefor.”
On the undisputed record, it is a shocking case of Mississippi officials without legal justification engaging in brutal violence against Negroes. Its purpose and effect must also be judged in the light of the willingness of some to be indifferent to the truth or the oath to testify truthfully. Whether, as was true in Wooten v. Ohler, 5 Cir., 1962, 303 F.2d 759, 765, we would be “justified in concluding that the action toward * * * [these would-be registrants] was characteristic of the policy which the Sheriff had established for the whole [County]” is not important. What is important is the inevitable effect of this one incidence of governmental action by a governmental agent in this state whose “steelhard, inflexible, undeviating official policy of segregation” we have judicially noticed, United States v. City of Jackson, Mississippi, 5 Cir., 1963, 318 F.2d 1, 5; United States v. Mississippi, S.D.Miss., 3-judge, 1964, 229 F.Supp. 925. [No. 3312, March 23, 1964], As we recognized in United States v. Wood, 5 Cir., 1961, 295 F.2d 772, 781, the inevitable, indeed intended, effect is to effectually discourage the exercise by Negro citizens of their rights to become registered and vote for candidates of their choice. If the courts may not interfere, we have on this record another startling example of the persons harmed being the only ones entitled to no relief. Tipton v. Socony Mobil Oil Co., 5 Cir., 1963, 315 F.2d 660, 662 (dissenting opinion), reversed mem., 1963, 375 U.S. 34, 84 S.Ct. 1, 11 L.Ed.2d 4; Mirabile v. United States, 5 Cir., 1964, 330 F.2d 676, 678 (dissenting opinion).
Third, the Court’s emphasis on the relief sought is, I think, erroneous. The right of relief should not be determined by the pleadings. This would mean that only relief requested by the pleadings *581may be granted. This is not the law. After a trial, the Court is bound to grant whatever relief the facts show is necessary or appropriate. F.R.Civ.P. 54(c); Smoot v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 5 Cir., 1962, 299 F.2d 525; Arthur H. Richland Co. v. Harper, 5 Cir., 1962, 302 F.2d 324; Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen v. Central of Georgia Ry., 5 Cir,. 1962, 305 F.2d 605; Shull v. Pilot Life Ins. Co., 5 Cir., 1963, 313 F.2d 445.
That leaves only the question whether any relief ought to be granted at this time. Again, I emphasize that the evidence at the “permanent” trial will be the same. If this had been a Fair Labor Standards Act case, 29 U.S.C.A. § 217, involving a Mississippi employer who had failed to keep records or pay the minimum wage, we would have reversed the denial of an injunction despite the promise of the offending party, “I’ll be good.” 1 If this had been a Mississippi employer adjudicated by the NLRB to have committed an unfair labor practice, 29 U.S. C.A. § 158(a), we would have enforced a cease and desist order even though the employer was presently in compliance with the Act and promised now to “go and sin no more.” 2
This is no ease of isolated momentary violence. The violence arose because of, and was directed against, Negroes seeking to become voters in a county where the bare statistics3 reveal the bare discrimination. When the Sheriff and his Deputy in the house of the law — the Courthouse — whip Negroes in the exercise of these fundamental rights, the effect is not hard to imagine. Nothing could be more discouraging than the fear that what happened to Grim, Davis, and Carr was the fate for others seeking this precious right. United States v. Wood, 5 Cir., 1961, 295 F.2d 772; United States v. Mississippi, S.D.Miss., 3-judge, 1964, 229 F.Supp. 925 [No. 3312, March 23, 1964]. I therefore think that the case should be reversed with directions to enter an injunction.4
I therefore respectfully dissent.

. Mitchell v. Ballinger Paving Co., 5 Cir., 1962, 299 F.2d 297; Mitchell v. Pid-cock, 5 Cir., 1962, 299 F.2d 281; Mitchell v. Jax Beer Distributors, 5 Cir., 1961, 290 F.2d 24; Goldberg v. Cochrell Banana Co., 5 Cir., 1962, 303 F.2d 811; Mitchell v. Strickland Transp. Co., 5 Cir., 1959, 267 F.2d 821; Mitchell v. Hausman, 5 Cir., 1958, 261 F.2d 778.

. N. L. R. B. v. Mexia Textile Mills, 1950, 339 U.S. 563, 567, 70 S.Ct. 833, 836, 94 L.Ed. 1067; N. L. R. B. v. Pool Mfg. Co., 1950, 330 U.S. 577, 70 S.Ct. 830, 94 L.Ed. 1077; N. L. R. B. v. Warren Co., 5 Cir., 1952, 197 F.2d 814; N. L. R. B. v. Taormina, 5 Cir., 1953, 207 F.2d 251; 5 Cir., 1957, 244 F.2d 197; cf. United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 1953, 345 U.S. 629, 73 S.Ct. 894, 97 L.Ed. 1303.

. With a total 1960 population (all ages) for Rankin County of 34,322 of which 37.-3% (12,702) are non-white (County and City Data Book 1962, United States Department of Commerce, Table 2, page 202), this record shows that of the adults of voting age there are approximately 112 Negro compared with 12,000 white registered voters.

. See cases cited note 1, supra, and Evers v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Dist., 5 Cir., 328 F.2d 408; United States v. Lynd, 5 Cir., 1962, 301 F.2d 818; 5 Cir., 1963, 321 F.2d 26.