Supreme Court Rejects Legal Defende Permission to File as Amicus Curiae in Employer Case

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET * NEW YORK 36, N. Y. © JUdson 6-8397 

THURGOOD MARSHALL 
ells oxo L eae Director and Counsel 

ROBERT L, CARTER WALTER WHITE howe cons 
ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD DE MILLE 
Treasurer Press Relations 

FOR RELEASE: April 16, 1953 

SUPREME COURT REJECTS 
LEGAL DEFENSE PERMISSION 
TO FILE AS AMICUS CURIAE 
IN EMPLOYER CASE April 13, 1953 

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 13.-- The United States Supreme Court 

today denied the request of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 

Fund for permission to file a brief as amicus curiae (friends of the 

court) in a case which involved the right of an employer to discrimi- 

nate against a worker because of race, religion, national origin or 

non-union membership. 

The case was that of the Gaynor News Company vs. the National 

Labor Relations Board, in which an employer is asking the U. S. 

Supreme Court to reverse a lower court's ruling which declared it an 

unfair labor practice for it to deprive non-union workers of benefits 

given to union members, 

In making the request for permission to appear as amicus curiae in 

the case, Thurgood Marshall, Legal Defense and Educational Fund counsel 

and director, and Jack Greenberg, assistant counsel, had pointed out 

that while racial discrimination did not appear to be involved in the 

case, certain legal principles might be determined by the high court's 

decision, principles which might "immediately affect the rights of 

Negroes and other minorities in their quest for equal employment." 

In its motion, NAACP Legal Defense attorneys stated that in their 

belief the briefs filed with the Supreme Court would not adequately 

present the facts as they would bear "upon the status of Negro and 

other minority group workers." 

"In many situations in which a labor union is the collective 

bargaining agent, Negroes and other minority groups are excluded from 

membership solely because of race, religion or national origin," they 

pointed out. 

The attorneys claimed that if an employer is given the right to 

discriminate against a worker because of non-union membership, then 

Negroes and other minority groups will be deprived of the right to 



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file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations 

Board and will therefore be deprived of equal employment opportunity. 

The Gaynor News Company had first refused the Legal Defense Fund 

permission to file in connection with the case. Refusal by the Supreme 

Court means that NAACP attorneys will not be able to participate in the 

case in any capacity. 

RESTRICTIVE COVENANT APPEAL 

BEFORE SUPREME COURT April 16, 1953 

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 16,-- The question as to whether a person 

has the right to go into court and to sue and recover money damages from 

another who failed to live up to a race restrictive covenant or "con- 

tract" will be argued before the United States Supreme Court Tuesday, 

April 28, 

Attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Color- 

ed People, Loren Miller of Los Angeles, who has successfully argued 

several other restrictive covenant cases, will argue that a court's 

awarding of damages for breach of restrictive covenant clauses or con- 

tracts deprives a person of his constitutional rights and is in complete 

violation of the l4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. 

The case, entitled Barrow, et al, vs. Jackson, involves Mrs. Leona 

Jackson, a white resident of a Southern California community, who in 

1950 sold a house to persons she allegedly knew would let Negroes occupy 

it. In the deed Mrs, Jackson refused to include a racial restrictive 

clause, which would restrict the occupancy of the house to "Caucasians" 

only. The parties who had signed the restrictive "contract" with Mrs, 

Jackson sued her for damages in the California Superior Court. The case 

was dismissed and on appeal both the California District Court of Appeal 

and the California Supreme Court upheld the earlier decision. 

In the brief filed with the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Miller 

has called upon the high court to settle this question as to whether one 

has the right to recover damages against a person who sells his property 

to a member of another racial group in violation of a covenant. He 

pointed out that California, Michigan and Washington, D.C. have ruled 

that a person cannot do so, while Oklahoma and Missouri have upheld the 

right of their courts to entertain damage actions of this kind. 

"The Fourteenth Amendment does not proscribe individual action," 

says Mr, Miller in quoting the California court, "but when, as here, the 

aid of a court is sought to compel one of the parties to the restrictive 

covenant to abide by its terms by subjecting him to an action for 



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damages because of the use or occupancy of the property by non- 

Causians--it is no longer a matter of individual action: it is one of 

State participation in the maintenance of racial residential segre- 

gation." 

Attorney Miller will be assisted by Thurgood Marshall, NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund counsel and director, and Franklin 

H, Williams, West Coast regional director. 

FLORIDA SUPREME COURT 
HEARS 2ND IRVIN APPEAL April 14,1953 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., April 14.-- Arguments in the appeal of the 

second conviction of Walter Lee Irvin, sole surviving defendant in the 

famous Groveland case, were heard today by the Florida Supreme Court. 

Presenting the argument for Irvin, twice convicted for the raping of a 

white farmwife, were NAACP attorneys Thurgood Marshall, the Associa- 

tion's special counsel of New York City, Jack Greenberg, also of New 

York, Alex Akerman and Paul Perkins, both of Orlando, Fla. 

Hearing on the appeal was twice postponed because of a hip injury 

suffered by Attorney Akerman. It was first scheduled for January 27, 

but when Mr. Akerman slipped and fell while getting off the plane on 

his way to the courthouse, it was put off until February 17. The 

second postponement was requested because the NAACP lawyer had not 

recovered sufficiently to keep the date. 

Irvin was first sentenced to death in 1949 when he, Samuel 

Shepherd and Charles Greenlee were convicted for reaping the Groveland 

farmwife. Shepherd was also given a death sentence. Greenlee, then 

16, was sent to prison for life. He did not appeal and is now in the 

state penitentiary. A fourth Negro, Ernest Thomas, was shot to death 

by a sheriff's posse before he ever reached a courtroom. 

The conviction and death sentence of Irvin and Shepherd were 

taken to the United States Supreme Court by the NAACP. In April, 

1951, the high court ordered a new trial, Justice Robert H. Jackson, 

in his concurring opinion, stated that the events surrounding the 

first trial did not "meet any civilized conception of due process of 

law." 

On the eve of the new trial, in November, 1951, Irvin and 

Shepherd were shot down in the middle of the night on a lonely road 

by the sheriff while he was transporting the two men from the state 

penitentiary to the site of the new trial, Shepherd was killed and 



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Irvin seriously injured. 

The second trial was held in Ocala early in 1952, After one 

hour and twenty-three minutes deliberation, the all-white jury brought 

back a "guilty" verdict and Walter Lee Irvin was again sentenced to 

death by Judge T. J. Futch. 

In their argument before the Florida Supreme Court, the NAACP 

attorneys cited twenty-two errors committed by the lower court in 

convicting and sentencing Irvin. Most glaring were the refusal of the 

trial court to admit into evidence a public opinion poll showing 

prejudice against Irvin in the county of the trial, the refusal of the 

trial court to order a mistrial after the State's Attorney had made 

prejudicial remarks to the jury, and the introduction into evidence of 

articles seized without a search warrant. 

A decision is not expected to be handed down for at least several 

weeks. 

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