Brooks v. Briley

• Decision Date: 09 October 1967
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 4747.
• Citation: 274 F. Supp. 538
• Parties: Frederick BROOKS et al., Plaintiffs, v. Beverly BRILEY, Mayor, etc., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

274 F. Supp. 538

Frederick BROOKS et al., Plaintiffs, v. Beverly BRILEY, Mayor, etc., et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 4747.

United States District Court M. D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

October 9, 1967.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

I. T. Creswell, Jr., Nashville, Tenn., Percy L. Julian, Jr., Madison, Wis., Howard Moore, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., Michael Standard, William Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy, New York City, Dennis J. Roberts and Harriet Van Tassel, Newark, N. J., and C. B. King, Albany, Ga., for plaintiffs.

Edwin F. Hunt, of Boult, Hunt, Cummings & Conners, Cecil D. Branstetter, James F. Neal, of Cornelius, Collins, Neal & Higgins, William J. Harbison, of Trabue, Minick, Sturdivant & Harbison, J. O. Bass, Sr., and J. Bradbury Reed, of Bass, Berry & Sims, Nashville, Tenn., for defendants.

Before PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge, and MILLER and GRAY, District Judges.

WILLIAM E. MILLER, District Judge.

In this action we are requested to strike down and to enjoin the enforcement of numerous state criminal laws and municipal ordinances for alleged vagueness and overbreadth and for invalidity as applied to plaintiffs and others similarly situated. Giving rise to the litigation were the North Nashville riots which occurred on April 8, 9 and 10, 1967, an outbreak of violence and lawlessness which led to police intervention and subsequent arrests and criminal charges. For the reasons stated in this opinion we must emphatically reject the plaintiffs' invitation thus to shackle the law enforcement responsibilities of local authorities.

For the purpose of discussing and considering the pertinent issues, the laws challenged in this case may be divided into two categories: First, certain state statutes and laws under which, according to the proof, actual arrests and charges were made against named plaintiffs in the action, consisting of T.C.A. Sec. 39-4901 (carrying dangerous weapons), T.C. A. Sec. 39-1213 (disorderly conduct), and the common law offense, recognized in Tennessee, of inciting to riot (set forth in Appendix A to this opinion); and Second, other state laws and municipal ordinances under which, according to the proof, no arrests or charges or threats of such arrests or charges were made against any named plaintiff, or against any other person shown to have been involved in the April riots, consisting of T.C.A. Sec. 39-4701 (vagrancy), Metro Ordinance 66-928(14) (disorderly conduct); 66-928(16) (assembling to commit unlawful acts); 66-928(17) (assembling to disturb citizens or travelers); 66-928(46) (loitering); and 66-928(47) (loitering about schools). (Set forth in Appendix B to this opinion.)

Considered in its context, the action, basically, involves the right of state and municipal law enforcement authorities, including the local police, to cope effectively with a serious outbreak of violence and lawlessness without interference from the long arm of a federal injunction. As explained more fully later on in the course of this opinion, we find to be devoid of factual support, and indeed even fanciful, the plaintiffs' charge that policemen and other officers and officials of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville, combined or conspired in bad faith to harass the plaintiffs and to deprive them of their constitutionally protected rights. It is equally clear from the present record that the North Nashville riots of April 1967, which plaintiffs would euphemistically characterize as "disturbances" or "disorders," were neither caused nor aggravated by improper police methods, nor by the use of excessive force, nor by so-called police brutality. Contrariwise, the evidence unequivocally demonstrates that Nashville was confronted with an eruption of violence in no way caused by the police and having no rational connection with the enjoyment of civil rights or First Amendment freedoms—an outbreak which posed a grave threat to the peace and good order of the community, as well as to the security and welfare of its inhabitants.

It is in this context that we approach the legal problems posed by this case, and not against the background found to exist in some of the authorities relied upon by the plaintiffs, of peaceable assemblies, demonstrations, or other activities designed to protest a grievence or to advocate a cause.

The named plaintiffs are Frederick Brooks, a Negro citizen of the United States, a student at Tennessee State University in Nashville, and chairman of the Nashville Chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); George Ware, a Negro citizen of the United States, and field secretary of SNCC engaged in carrying out its purposes in Nashville; Ernest C. Stephens, a Negro citizen, and field secretary of SNCC engaged in carrying out its purposes in Nashville; Adrienne Lyn Jenkins, a Negro citizen, and a student at Fisk University in Nashville; Oscar L. Graham, a Negro citizen, and a student at Fisk University; Calvin M. Conner, a Negro citizen, and a student at Tennessee State University; Stokely Carmichael, a Negro citizen, and at the time of the filing of the complaint national chairman of SNCC, a position in which he was replaced after filing of the complaint by one H. Rap Brown; Aaron Neal, Jr., a Negro citizen, and a student at Tennessee State University; James E. Woodruff, a Negro citizen, and an Episcopalian priest whose parish is located in the City of Nashville; Larry Rabinowitz, a Caucasian citizen of the United States, employed in the City of Nashville; Diane Sealy, a Negro citizen, and a student at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The named plaintiffs sue on behalf of themselves and on behalf of a class consisting of all members of the staff of SNCC, all students at Fisk and Tennessee State Universities, all Negroes in the schools and colleges in Nashville, as well as all Negro residents of said city similarly situated, the complaint alleging that such classes are too numerous to bring before the Court. Plaintiff SNCC, an unincorporated association, having a local chapter in Nashville, alleging that its aims and purposes are to promote and help secure to all Negro citizens the rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution of the United States, and that it seeks to advance these purposes by engaging in all forms of peaceful activities, such as free speech, assembly, and the petitioning of the Government for redress of grievances, sues in its own behalf.

The jurisdiction of the Court over the complaint is invoked under 28 U.S.C.A. Secs. 1331, 1332, 1343(3) and (4), 2201, 2202, 2281, and 2284; 42 U.S.C.A. Secs. 1971, 1981, 1983 and 1985; "The Voting Rights Act of 1965," and the Constitution of the United States, more particularly the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments thereto.

The defendants named in the complaint, as amended, are Beverly Briley, Mayor of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, (a unit of government hereinafter referred to as Nashville or as the City of Nashville); H. O. Kemp, Chief of Police of the City of Nashville; Bobby Hill, a member of the Police Department of the City of Nashville, individually and in his official capacity as representative of a class of police officers of said city which is alleged to be too numerous to bring before the Court; Neill S. Brown, Director of Law of the City of Nashville; Thomas Shriver, the District Attorney General for the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Tennessee; and R. C. Jackson, a member of the Police Department of the City of Nashville, individually and as a representative of other police officers of said city.

The plaintiffs' complaint, as amended, constitutes a two-fold attack upon the state laws and municipal ordinances set forth in Appendices A and B to this opinion. The first theory of the complaint is that the defendants caused arrests and prosecutions to be instituted against the plaintiffs, or have threatened such arrests and prosecutions under the said laws and ordinances, not in good faith for the purpose of valid law enforcement, but pursuant to a plan or scheme to harass the plaintiffs and to subject them to the deprivation of their federally protected rights, including freedom of speech, assembly, association and related activities. Secondly, the plaintiffs seek to support their claim for relief by alleging that the said statutes and ordinances are void for vagueness and overbreadth, consequently violating the fundamental guarantees of free speech, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. With respect to the occurrences of April 8, 9 and 10, in North Nashville, the plaintiffs allege that they were engaged solely in peaceful activities and that any acts of violence were caused by the defendants in using inflammatory remarks about the plaintiff Stokely Carmichael and others prior to said occurrences, in making unwarranted threats against him, by using improper police methods, by making illegal arrests, searches and seizures, and by resorting to the use of unnecessary force, as well as by placing unwarranted criminal charges against the plaintiffs, or some of them, for violating various laws and ordinances.

It is alleged that the prosecution of the plaintiffs under the said laws and ordinances will have destructive, intimidating and "chilling" effects upon federal rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, and that such prosecution will have identical effects upon the rights of every member of the class that the plaintiffs represent. Alleging irreparable injury incident to the arrests and proceedings under said laws and ordinances, the plaintiffs request a declaratory judgment that the said laws and ordinances are void both as applied and on their face, and the issuance of an injunction enjoining and restraining the enforcement of the said laws and ordinances and any proceedings thereunder.

Without undertaking to summarize in detail the defensive pleadings, the defendants in their answer...