Alexander v. Cox, 22700.
| Decision Date | 13 July 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 22700.,22700. |
| Citation | 348 F.2d 894 |
| Parties | Jerry Lee ALEXANDER et al., Kathy Amatniek, et al., William Henry Applewhite, et al., Petitioners, v. The Honorable Harold COX, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Alvin J. Bronstein, Jackson, Miss., Melvyn H. Zarr, New York, N. Y., for petitioners.
Thomas H. Watkins, Jackson, Miss., for respondent.
Before JONES, WISDOM, and BELL, Circuit Judges.
The petitioners, seeking to remove some 400 or more criminal causes from the City Court of Jackson, Mississippi, presented three joint petitions for removal to the Clerk of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, under 28 U.S.C. § 1443 and § 1446, and Lefton v. Hattiesburg, 5 Cir. 1965, 333 F.2d 280. The district clerk refused to file the removal petitions because of a district court rule that only individual removal petitions may be submitted and filed. The petitioners then presented to the district judge, The Honorable W. Harold Cox, motions for leave to file joint removal petitions. The district court declined to sign an order granting or denying the motions on the ground that the removal cases were not properly before the court. The petitioners pray that this Court issue a writ of mandamus to the district court directing acceptance of the removal petitions for filing.
In Lefton v. City of Hattiesburg, out of deference to judicial decorum, we ordered that the application for mandamus be held in abeyance so that the district court could have the advantage of our views on the question similar to the question now before us. In Lefton we recognized that the rule requiring separate removal petitions would not ordinarily represent "such a gross abuse of discretion as to move us to mandamus". But we were careful to say that the discretion the district court may exercise in such matters is an "informed discretion". We also pointed out that the exercise of such judicial discretion assumed "that such a requirement does not so delay matters as to operate to deprive the petitioners of effective access to the federal courts".
Our view as to this case is that the requirement of preparing multiple petitions and other papers is so burdensome as to, in effect, deny the petitioners access to the federal courts, or, at least, access to the federal courts except after onerous delay. In these circumstances we consider that in the exercise of an informed discretion, the district court should allow the consolidation of removal petitions to the extent that each petition relates only to arrests made on the same day and at the same location for the same alleged offense. Only one representative state pleading need be attached to each petition. The petitions should show which petitioners, if any, are no longer in the custody of the local officials.
We point out, as we did in Lefton, that removal bonds are not authorized in criminal cases and that filing fees are not to be collected in connection with criminal removal...
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Fairley v. Patterson
...Amendment right of criminal defendants to counsel of their own choice.") See Sanders v. Russell, supra, 401 F.2d 241; Alexander v. Cox, 348 F.2d 894 (5th Cir. 1965). 15 Although that case involved statutorily authorized attorneys' fees, as stated in note 12, supra, once the grant has been a......
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Jarvis v. Roberts
...practice, the law provides that a litigant may appear, plead, and conduct his case through counsel. 28 U.S.C. § 1654. In Alexander v. Cox, 348 F.2d 894 (5th Cir. 1965), the Court held that verification by counsel on behalf of petitioners seeking removal who were not in the City was sufficie......
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...verification requirement of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1441(a) (1982) is satisfied by the signature of all defendants' attorneys. Alexander v. Cox, 348 F.2d 894, 896 (5th Cir.1965); Greenspun v. Schlindwein, 574 F.Supp. 1038, 1040 n. 2 Defendants also challenge a segment of this Court's appellate juris......
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Sanders v. Russell
...defendants to counsel of their own choice." Lefton v. City of Hattiesburg, 5 Cir. 1964, 333 F.2d 280, 285; see also Alexander v. Cox, 5 Cir. 1965, 348 F. 2d 894. Substantial allegations were made in the petitions that the Rule affected fundamental rights and that its adoption was beyond the......