Memorandum on Cases in Which Supreme Court Decisions are Imminent

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

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE FOR RELEASE 

President MONDAY 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers October 10, 1966 

Director-C 

Jack Greenberg 
nsel 

MEMORANDUM 

TO: Reporters covering the 1966 term of the United States Supreme Court 

FROM: The Legal Defense Fund*, which has brought more civil rights 
cases to the high court than any other private agency in America 

RE: Cases in which Supreme Court decisions are imminent 

1. Name of Case 

Winters v. Beck 

Question Presented 

Must state courts provide legal counsel for indigent defendants 
accused of misdemeanors? 

Statement of Facts 

Robert Winters, a 24-year-old Negro bus boy, was convicted of a 
morals offense involving a white woman in Little Rock, Arkansas, 
on May 13, 1965 and sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $254. 
Unable to pay the fine, he was committed to the County Penal 
Farm to work it off at the rate of one dollar a day, extending 
his jail sentence to nine and a half months, 

Summary _of LDF Argument 

Winters was not represented by an attorney at his trial and was 
therefore unconstitutionally convicted. LDF lawyers maintain 
that the type of charge has nothing to do with a poor defendant's 
right to a court appointed lawyer in misdemeanor cases. 

For Further Information 

Contact LDF Attorney Michael Meltsner at the office, Ju 6-8397, 
or at his home, Su 7-6714, 

2. Name of Case 

Mason v. Biloxi 

Question Presented 

Can a state deny use to Negroes of public facilities constructed 
with federal, state, and local funds pursuant to governmental 
programs and policies designed to promote the health and recreation 
of all citizens? 

Statement of Facts 

Negroes had sought without success to use the 24-mile beach along 
the coast of Mississippi (one of the largest man-made beaches in 

in the world). After three years of fruitless litigation, 29 
persons attempted to utilize the beach on Sunday, June 23, 1963, 
and an angry crowd of some 2000 whites stood by as police officers 
ordered the Negroes away from the beach. The Negroes declined 
and were arrested. Others were beaten by the whites. Police 
officials were unable to prevent the Negroes' cars from being 

(more) 
Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Rlverside 9-8487 9 



-2- October 10, 1966 

burned and overturned or to prevent the police van, in which the 
petitioners were traveling to jail, from being tilted by the mob, 
causing some minor injuries. 

Summary _of LDF Argument 

The beach involved in this case has become so entwined with govern- 
mental programs and policies and taken on such a governmental 
character as to preclude basing criminal convictions on failure to 
obey purely racial limitations on its use. The state and local 
governments are involved in protecting the beach from Negroes as 
well as from tides and litter--thus Mississippi has departed from 
a policy of strict neutrality in matters of private discrimination 
and involved itself in active bias subject to the 14th Amendment. 

For Further Information 

Contact LDF Attorney Melvyn Zarr at the office, Ju 6-8397, or at 
his home, 873-4986, 

3. Name of Case 

Walker v. Birmingham 

Question Presented 

Do the contempt convictions of Revs. King and Walker and other 
Negro petitioners for alleged disobedience of an injunction of 
which they were not notified violate the First Amendment and due 
process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment? 

Statement of Facts 

This case grew out of The Reverend iiartin Luther King's Good Friday 
and Easter Sunday demonstrations in Birmingham in 1963. Convicted 
leaders in addition to Dr, King included Reverend Ralph Abernathy, 
Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, Reverend A. D, King, Reverend Fred L. 
Shuttlesworth, and J. ¥!, Hayes, T. L. Fisher, and J, T. Porter, 
Dr. King and his associates did attempt to secure parade permits 
prior to the demonstrations. Through LDF attorneys, they offered 
to prove that the city commission never issued permits for parades 
or marches and that these were in fact issued by the City Clerk at 
the request of the Traffic Department--without authority of 
statute or ordinance, The Circuit Court of Birmingham refused to 
hear the proof. 

Summary of LDF Arqument 

In addition to the contention that petitioner's rights under the 
First Amendment and the due process and equal protection clauses 
of the Fourteenth Amendment were violated, LDF attorneys maintain 
that the injunction was unconstitutional because its terms were 
"impermissibly vague;" the injunction enforced an ordinance which 
is unconstitutional on its face because of due process and equa 
protection grounds; and, the trial court improperly excluded evi- 
dence pertaining to the unconstitutional administration of the 
parade ordinance; and, finally, there is no evidence that the 
petitioners violated terms of the injunction's curb against 
"unlawful" parades and demonstrations, 

For Further Information 

Contact LDF Attorney James ii, Nabrit at the office, Ju 6-8397, or 
at his home, Re 2-7129. 

* This is a separate, independent organization from the NAACP, The 
names are similar because the Legal Defense Fund was established as 
a different organization by the NAACP and through the years has gained 
complete autonomy.