Tenn. Sit-In Case Goes to U.S. Supreme Court

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NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers 

oe 

FOR RELEASE Director-Counsel Friday Tack Goccabaty TENN. SIT-IN CASE GOES 
December 4, 1964  juvciate counsel TO U. S. SUPREME COURT 

. Constance Baker Motley : 

=. Sa case in which a southern judge is claimed to have 
misled an all-white jury by telling them to use a civil rather than a 
criminal law to convict Negro sit-in demonstrators was taken to the 
U.S. Supreme Court today by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 

The Tennessee Supreme Court acknowledged that the trial judge 
had erred in instructing the jury but dismissed the error as in- 
substantial the Legal Defense Fund brief asserts. 

Eight Negro college students were convicted on charge of 
"conspiracy" resulting from a sit-in demonstration during October of 
1962 adainst segregation in Nashville's Burrus Webber Cafeteria. 
Among the students was John R. Lewis, now chairman of the Student 

Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. 
Legal Defense Fund attorneys further angue that Tennessee failed 

to back up its case by proving its charge that the Negro students 
were guilty of "unlawful conspiracy". 

"Under Tennessee law," the attorneys maintain, "it is necessary 
to prove both an agreement and an overt act in order to convict for 
conspiracy. 

"fll evidence in this case shows, however, is that petitioners 
(Negro students) went to a cafeteria to attempt to obtain service, 
were barred...end that the resulting congestion (in the small 
vestibule) made it inconvenient for other patrons to enter. 
3 "The lack of evidence that they (the students) agreed or intended 

to obstruct the doorway or to disrupt the cafeteria's business in any 
way," the Legal Defense Fund brief asserts, “requires that the 
convictions be reversed. 
=» Title 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the public accommodations 
portion, also “compels the reversal of these cases," the brief adds. 
4 Section 201 of Title 2 states that "all persons shall be en- 

titled to full and equal enjoyment of good, services, facilities, 
privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public 
accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or 
segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national 
Origin." Another provision prohibits punishing anyone for exercising 
rights protected by the law. 
a The Legal Defense Fund's brief said, the ‘offense' with which 

‘the Negro petitioners are charged is now removed, by the paramount 
federal authority, from the category of punishable crimes. 
“= The Civil Rights Act, besides being paramount national law, is 
part of the law of every state....the brief said. 

. The Legal Defense Fund attorneys also argue that the U.S. 
Constitution, even without the Civil Rights Act, prohibits individual 
states from convicting peaceful "sit-in" demonstrators when they seek 

ce at places of public accommodation which bar Negroes. 
This argument has been made by the Legal Defense Fund in previous 
in" cases before the high court. In June of this year, three 

justices took each side of the issue and three others expressed no 
view. 

“ Legal Defense Fund attorneys maintain that the Negro petitioners 
havé been subjected to official state action which sought to enforce 
segregation. 
Sack on the brief for the Legal Defense Fund were Director- 

Counsglel Jack Greenberg and James M. Nabrit III of New York, and 
Z. A6xander Looby and Avon Williams of Nashville. Charles S. 
Ralston, also of the Legal Defense Fund's New York headquarters, was 
of counsel. 

=30= 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 So