Alabama Justice of Peace May Not "Pocket" Fines

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- Press Releases
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- cfa90bba-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 3. Alabama Justice of Peace May Not "Pocket" Fines, 1966. cfa90bba-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/078367f5-1714-4923-b689-998f5528ff60/alabama-justice-of-peace-may-not-pocket-fines. Accessed April 06, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

Hon. Francis E. Rivers 
FOR RELEASE 

Saturday, 
February 12, 1966 

Director-Counsel 

Jack Greenberg 

ALA, JUSTICE OF PEACE 
MAY NOT "POCKET" FINES 

MONTGOMERY---Attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund today 
praised "a landmark ruling" by a three-judge federal court in 
Montgomery, which "takes the profit out of prosecuting civil rights 
workers", according to Jack Greenberg, director-counsel,. 

The court said Alabama Justices of the Peace may no longer 
personally collect fines levied against plaintiffs. 

"The decision is bound to have wide impact across the entire 
state, where civil rights workers in particular have been singled 
out for extreme penalties, under color of law, by Justices ‘of the 
Peace who usually are not trained in the law." Mr. Greenberg 
continued. 

"The court has ended this practice and in so doing ends a 
system of legal procedure which has denied state defendants a fair 
trial under Alabama law." 

Similar suits are now pending in Mississippi. Mr. Greenberg 
also announced that staff attorneys will follow up this victory 
with additional Justice of the Peace suits in Alabama, so as to 
entrench this important precedent. 

The same legal argument will be extended to other states where 
this practice is carried on. 

This case grew out of the arrest of John Hulett, civil rights 
activist, in October, 1965 on a charge of reckless driving. 

He was brought before Justice of the Peace J. B. Julian in 
Lowndes County and ordered to stand trial. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys filed a complaint and motions 
for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in 
Federal District Court, 

The deciding three-judge court quoted with goproves an earlier 
Supreme Court case, saying that the act of trying Mr, Hulett would 
"violate the 14th Amendment and deprive a defendant (Mr. Hulett) in 
a criminal case of due process of law to subject (him and) his 
liberty or property to the judgement of a court--the judge of which 
has direct, personal, substantial, and pecuniary interest in reaching 
a conclusion against him in his case." 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys were Solomon Seay, Jr., of 
Montgomery and Jack Greenberg, Charles H. Jones and Melvyn Zarr of 
New York City. 

=-30- 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Inf ion—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 ES

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Alabama Justice of Peace May Not "Pocket" Fines

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