Rights Lawyers Seek Appeals Court Ruling Against Police Searches Without Warrants

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December 30, 1965

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Press Releases, Volume 3. Rights Lawyers Seek Appeals Court Ruling Against Police Searches Without Warrants, 1965. b47b7695-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/e7a63be7-1c11-4db7-9a35-9f18c6f71fb0/rights-lawyers-seek-appeals-court-ruling-against-police-searches-without-warrants. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS. RELEASE 
President 

Ue Allan Knight Chalmers 

Trace Greenberg See 

December 30, 1965 

RIGHTS LAWYERS SEEK APPEALS COURT RULING 
AGAINST POLICE SEARCHES WITHOUT WARRANTS 

RICHMOND----Two civil rights organizations today asked the Fourth 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here to overturn a lower court's 
refusal to enjoin Baltimore police from searching private buildings 
without first obtaining search warrants. 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyers along with 
attorneys for the Baltimore NAACP branch brought the appeal in be- 
half of seven Baltimore Negroes. 

The suit is a class action in behalf of all Negroes 
similarly situated. It stems from an intensive police manhunt a 
year ago for two Negro brothers suspected of the Christmas Eve hold- 
up of a liquor store and the subsequent shooting of two white 
policemen, 

In the 19 days following the crimes, special police squads, 
in many cases acting on anonymous "tips," conducted more than 300 
searches of Negro homes, churches and businesses for the brothers, 
Samuel and Earl Veney. 

Most of the searches were conducted without search warrants, 
although warrants for the arrest of the Veney brothers had been 
issued. 

As a result of the raids, Negro residents of Baltimore, 
through the Legal Defense Fund and the NAACP, asked the U, S. 
District Court in Baltimore to enjoin Police Commissioner Bernard C. 
Schmidt and his subordinates from continuing such searches. 

After lengthy hearings last January and February, the court 
on April 14 declined to issue injunctions. 

The Veney brothers were arrested in March, 
The district court found that there was not enough 

evidence to substantiate charges of racial discrimination in the 
conduct of the searches. 

It rejected a Legal Defense Fund argument that police are 
constitutionally bound to obtain a search warrant before entering 
private buildings to search for a person named in an arrest warrant, 

Despite finding that most of the 300-odd searches were made 
without reasonable grounds to believe the suspects were on the 
premises, the court refused to enjoin police from conducting 
searches “based on anonymous tips or otherwise without probable 
cause or grounds." 

The court said such an injunction would be difficult to 
frame, difficult to enforce and place severe burdens on the police 
and the court, 

Attorneys for the seven plaintiffs are Legal Defense Fund 
Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, Associate Counsel James M, Nabrit 
III, Melvyn Zarr and Michael Meltsner, all of New York, and lirs. 
Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Tucker R. Dearing and W. A. C. Hughes, Jr., 
all of Baltimore. 

-30- 

EDITOR'S NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is not 
synonymous with the NAACP, i 

Our correct identification is the NAACP Leqal 
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, However, since 
this is admittedly long, many »2cple refer to us as 
the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Once this is 
estabiished, in a story, others refer to us as the 
Legal Defense Fund. 

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

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Rights Lawyers Seek Appeals Court Ruling Against Police Searches Without Warrants

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