Court Opinion

ID: 9458994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:07:42.812373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:58.650782
License: Public Domain

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge,
with whom JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge, and WISDOM and GOLDBERG, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
In my view, these Mississippi state criminal prosecutions were properly removed to the federal court under the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court in Georgia v. Rachel, 384 U.S. 780, 86 S.Ct. 1783, 16 L.Ed.2d 925 (1966), and the district court erred in remanding them for trial in state court.
Congress provided for the removal of such cases from state courts by the enactment of the civil rights removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1443. The Supreme Court held in Rachel that pending state criminal prosecutions were removable if petitioners were to be tried in state court solely as the result of peaceful efforts to exercise their rights under “any law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality.” 384 U.S. at 792, 86 S.Ct. at 1790.
Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 245, is such a law. Codified under the title “Federally Protected Activities,” Section 245 provides broad protection against injury, intimidation or interference with enumerated civil rights, among which is the right to aid or encourage other persons to participate, “without discrimination on account of race, color, religion or national origin,” in any of the benefits or activities set forth in the statute. [Section 245(b) (5).] That these federally protected rights are set forth in terms of prohibition against their interference, and that criminal sanctions are imposed for their violation, does not take them out of the Rachel rationale since they are nevertheless contained in a “law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality.” There is nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Rachel to indicate any limitation or restriction on removal because the law is accompanied by criminal penalties rather than civil remedies.
On the day they were arrested, petitioners had been engaging in peaceful mass meetings, demonstrations and marches in Mendenhall, Simpson County, Mississippi, in connection with a civil rights boycott and other protests to secure racial equality. These activities were federally protected against interference by 18 U.S.C. § 245(b). It is clear that the arrests of petitioners were racially motivated, pretextual, without evidence to support them, and the direct result of their participation in the Men-denhall civil rights activities. Under the circumstances, removal of these cases to federal court should have been sustained and their dismissal ordered.