explaining, for a case to be removable under § 1443, defendant must rely upon law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality, and must show that, due to a formal expression of state law or other equally firm prediction, he' would be denied or cannot enforce federal rights in state court
How later courts described this case
- explaining, for a case to be removable under § 1443, defendant must rely upon law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality, and must show that, due to a formal expression of state law or other equally firm prediction, he' would be denied or cannot enforce federal rights in state court
- finding that the very act of bringing the proceedings constituted a denial of the defendants’ statutory rights, despite the statute being facially neutral, when peaceful protestors were prosecuted for criminal trespass under Georgia’s criminal code in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- holding that to establish removal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1443 (1), a plaintiff must show that the right upon which she relies arises under a federal law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality and that she cannot enforce that right in state court
- holding that removal under § 1443(1) of the defendants’ state criminal prosecution for trespass was proper, because the very act of prosecuting them for non-forcibly seeking admittance to restaurants open to the public violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Fortas join,
concurring.
As I indicate in my opinion in the Peacock cases, post, p. 842, equal civil rights of a citizen of the United States are “denied” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1443 (1) (1964 ed.) when he is prosecuted for asserting them. Section 201 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( 78 Stat. 243 , 42 U. S.. C. § 2000a (1964 ed.)) gave these defendants a right to equal service in places of public accommodation. Section 203 ( 78 Stat. 244 , 42 U. S. C. .§ 2000a-2 (1964 ed.)) gave them a right against intimidation, coercion, or punishment for exercising those rights. And we held in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U. S. 306 , that §§ 201 and 203 precluded state criminal trespass convictions of sit-in demonstrators even though the sit-ins occurred *807 and their prosecution had been instituted prior to the effective date of the 1964 Act.
*0
*807 Congress, in other words, gave these defendants the right to enter the restaurants in question, to sit there, and to be served — a right that was construed by this Court to include immunity from prosecution after the effective date of the Act for acts done prior thereto.
It is the right to equal service in restaurants and the right to be free of prosecution for asserting that right— not the right to have a trespass conviction reversed — that the present prosecutions threaten. It is this right which must be vindicated by complete insulation from the State’s criminal process if it is to be wholly vindicated. It is this right which the defendants are “denied” so long as the present prosecutions persist.
Georgia claims that Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, supra, does not cover cases of sit-ins prosecuted for disorderly conduct or other unlawful acts. Of course that is true. But one of the functions of the hearing on the allegations of the removal petition will be to determine whether the defendants were ejected on racial grounds or for some other, valid, reason. The Court of Appeals correctly ruled that “in the event it is established that the removal of the appellants from the various places of public accommodation was done for racial reasons, then under authority of the Hamm case it would become the duty of the district court to order a dismissal of the prosecutions without further proceedings.” 342 F. 2d 336, 343 . (Emphasis added.)
If service was denied for other reasons, no case for removal has been made out. And if, as is intimated, any doubt remains as to whether the restaurants in question were covered by the 1964 Act, that too should be left open in the hearing to be held before the District Court — a procedure to which the defendants do not object.