Court Opinion

ID: 9450115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:35:42.814066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:09.384129
License: Public Domain

GRIFFIN B. BELL, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially):
In concurring I do wish to add a word with respect to part one of the opinion having to do with several persons joining in a single petition under the removal statute.
The wisdom of requiring a separate petition for each defendant seeking removal is made manifest by the facts of this case. Many persons are involved. Each is charged separately in the state court. The facts as now developed before us without dispute indicate that Michael Lefton whose name appears in the style *287of this ease was released by juvenile authorities in Hattiesburg after having been taken into custody. He therefore is not a party seeking removal as he has never been charged in the state court. Moreover, his name is “Lofton”.
It goes without saying that a separate petition on behalf of each person seeking removal would tend to effectuate a more orderly procedure in the District Court, and this is all the more true in this day of mass arrests. This requirement should, of course, be balanced against the onerous task of preparing multiple petitions, but this, as Judge Wright leaves it, is procedural and something best left to the discretion of the District Court.
In essence the ultimate concern in matters of the type involved in these removal proceedings is to determine the truth of the allegations with respect to deprivation of constitutional rights. The removal statute may not be used to thwart local law enforcement. The duty first falls on the state courts and state officers to accord and protect constitutional rights. Art. 6, Cls. 2 and 3, U.S. Const. It is failure or abdication there which gives rise to the proceeding in the federal court.