Court Opinion

ID: 9450760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:56:53.07579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:26.407023
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
With deference, I dissent. This Court, on January 4, 1963- commenced criminal contempt proceedings against Ross Barnett and Paul Johnson, Jr., upon the following assertions, among others:
“Probable cause has been made to appear from the application of the Attorney General filed December 21, 1962, in the name of and on behalf of the United States that on September 25,1962, Ross R. Barnett, having been served with and having actual notice of this Court’s temporary restraining order of September 25, 1962, wilfully prevented James H. Meredith from entering the offices of the Board of Trustees of the University of Mississippi in Jackson, *102Mississippi, and thereby deliberately prevented James H. Meredith from enrolling as a student in the University pursuant to this Court’s order of July 28, 1962; that on September 26, 1962, Paul B. Johnson, Jr., acting under the authorization and direction of Ross R. Barnett, and as his agent and as an agent and officer of the State of Mississippi, and while having actual notice of the temporary restraining order of September 25, 1962, wilfully pre,vented James H. Meredith from entering the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, and thereby deliberately prevented James H. Meredith from enrolling as a student in the University, pursuant to the orders of this Court. * * *»
As the Court believed then I believe now: the charges were sufficiently grave to require a trial. The gravity of the charges was enhanced, not lessened, by the fact that they were against a governor and lieutenant governor of a state.
I agree that the Court now has full power to continue the prosecution or to dismiss it without more. I fully respect the judgment of those who believe the public interest, including the integrity of the judicial system, calls now for a dismissal. I do not share that judgment. As I believed then, I believe now, that the public interest requires that a trial be held and that the guilt or innocence of these two respondents be determined.