Sullivan v. Alabama State Bar
Decision Date | 28 April 1969 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 2820-N. |
Citation | 295 F. Supp. 1216 |
Parties | Thomas W. SULLIVAN, Plaintiff, v. ALABAMA STATE BAR, a corporate body, et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama |
Fred Blanton, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff.
Truman Hobbs, Hobbs, Copeland, Franco, Riggs & Screws, Montgomery, Ala., for the Bar, its Board of Commissioners and defendant officers.
MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., Gordon Madison, Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala., for the Justices of the Alabama Supreme Court.
Before RIVES, Circuit Judge, and JOHNSON and ALLGOOD, District Judges.
Judgment Affirmed April 28, 1969. See 89 S.Ct. 1486.
ON MOTION TO DISMISS AND FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS
This cause is submitted on a motion to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings filed by the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of Alabama and on a like motion filed by the Alabama State Bar, its Board of Commissioners and officers.
There can be little or no dispute about the pertinent basic facts as disclosed by the complaint. The Board of Commissioners of the Alabama State Bar was first established in 1923.1 The members in good standing of the Alabama State Bar in each judicial circuit of the State select one member of said Board of Commissioners, Sec. 22. Thus, there are 36 State judicial circuits and 36 members of the Board of Commissioners. There are wide variances among the judicial circuits both in total population and in the number of licensed lawyers.
At an annual meeting of the lawyers of Alabama held at such place and time as the Board of Commissioners designate and open to all members of the State Bar in good standing, a president and a first vice-president of the State Bar are elected by majority vote by the members of the State Bar present and voting. Sec. 24. Broad powers and authority are conferred on the Board of Commissioners, including the following:
Sec. 25 (c), (d) and (e).
In May and June 1964, the Grievance Committee of the Alabama State Bar preferred charges against the plaintiff Sullivan, alleging violations of specified rules theretofore formulated by the Board and approved by the Supreme Court. Additional charges against Sullivan were preferred in 1966. On March 3, 1967, the Board of Commissioners found Sullivan guilty of certain of the charges and ordered his disbarment. Sullivan filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Alabama for certiorari and for a stay of execution of the judgment of disbarment. On March 13, 1967, the Supreme Court of Alabama entered the following order:
Sullivan's petition for reconsideration was ordered stricken. He unsuccessfully applied to the Honorable Hugo L. Black, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, for a stay of execution. Thereafter, he filed the prescribed affidavit, and the Supreme Court of Alabama, on April 3, 1967, issued the following order:
The petition for review of Sullivan's disbarment was argued and submitted to the Supreme Court of Alabama in May 1968, and on January 30, 1969 that Court rendered its opinion and decision affirming the judgment of disbarment.
On November 15, 1968, before the disposition of the petition for review, the President of the Board of Commissioners and the General Counsel of the Alabama State Bar filed in the Supreme Court of Alabama a petition for an order to show cause why Sullivan should not be held in contempt of court for participating in certain named divorce actions. On December 11, 1968, an order to show cause issued from the Supreme Court of Alabama and the date set for hearing was Wednesday, January 8, 1969.
On January 3, 1969, Sullivan filed his complaint in this Court praying for a restraining order, interlocutory injunction and permanent injunction restraining further prosecution or consideration of the contempt proceeding against Sullivan. On the same day, the district judge denied Sullivan's motion for a temporary restraining order. The contempt proceeding is now set for hearing before the Supreme Court of Alabama on February 24, 1969.
Sullivan injects federal constitutional questions by seeking an injunction restraining the enforcement of Sections 22 and 24 of Title 46 of the Code of Alabama. He claims that Section 22 violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because of malapportionment of the Board of Commissioners arising from the wide disparity in population and in numbers of lawyers in the various State judicial circuits. He attacks Section 24 as denying the equal protection of the laws, because he and other lawyers are required to travel great distances and markedly different distances from their respective homes or places of practice in order to vote for a president and a first vice-president of the State Bar. Sullivan had made these same attacks as a part of his defense in the disbarment proceeding, and in affirming the judgment of disbarment the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled adversely to Sullivan on these questions.
In addition to individual relief as a defense to the contempt proceeding, Sullivan appears in this Court individually and as a champion of the entire State Bar——and prays: "That in the event the constitutional deficiencies inherent in the Alabama State Bar as now constituted are not remedied forthwith that the Court proceed to correct the deficiencies."
The foregoing statement of this case has necessarily been disproportionately long, and its decision can be relatively brief.
28 U.S.C. § 2283 provides:
"A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to...
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