Court Opinion

ID: 9450863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:59:49.109697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:28.939065
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Before BIGGS, Chief Judge, and Mc-LAUGHLIN, KALODNER, STALEY, GANEY, SMITH and FREEDMAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Rachel v. State of Georgia, 342 F.2d 336 (5 Cir. 1965), petition for certiorari filed 33 U.S.L. Week 3376 (5/15/65), was cited in our opinion in this case because there a claim was stated which was properly removable under Section 1443(1). In Rachel the petitioners were allegedly engaged in activities specifically protected by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and so within a law providing for equal civil rights under the removal statute. People of State of New York v. Galamison, 2 Cir., 342 F.2d 255, 268, cert. den. 380 U.S. 977, 85 S.Ct. 1342, 14 L.Ed.2d 272 (1965); see also Peacock v. City of Greenwood, Mississippi, 5 Cir. 1965, 347 F.2d 679.
In the appeals before us appellants assert that the First Amendment, protecting freedom of speech, is a law covering equal civil rights. They therefore contend that prosecutions resulting from their alleged exercise of that Constitutional guarantee are . removable under Section 1443. Galamison does soundly hold removal in these circumstances is improper under Section 1443 *825(2). Galamison also plainly and rightly states that removal sought on the basis of freedom of speech is not within the “ * * * laws providing for ‘equal’ civil rights to which § 1443 is confined. * * * Congress thus recognized the existence of a special body of laws providing for 'equal rights distinguishable from the universal protections of the Constitution. It was these equal rights laws, which had been referred to in the removal section as enacted in 1866 and were carried forward into the Revised Statutes, that furnished a basis for removal.” Galamison, supra, 342 F.2d pp. 266-268. Nothing now presented on behalf of appellants validly controverts this. See also Peacock v. City of Greenwood, Mississippi, supra.
On the question involved Galamison stands strong and straight as before. The effect if any of Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 14 L.Ed. 2d 22 (1965) on Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 63 S.Ct. 877, 87 L. Ed. 1324 (1943) is here irrelevant.
The petition for rehearing is without merit and will be denied.