Lynch v. United States

• Decision Date: 07 July 1951
• Docket Number: No. 13171.,13171.
• Citation: 189 F.2d 476
• Parties: LYNCH et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

189 F.2d 476 (1951)

LYNCH et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 13171.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

May 25, 1951.

Rehearing Denied July 7, 1951.

Frank M. Gleason, Rossville, Ga., for appellants.

J. Ellis Mundy, U. S. Atty., Atlanta, Ga., Raymond W. Martin, Sp. Asst. to U. S. Atty., LaGrange, Ga., for appellee.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and HOLMES and BORAH, Circuit Judges.

HOLMES, Circut Judge.

This appeal is from a sentence for a violation of Section 242, Title 18, of the United States Code. Appellants and 10 others were first indicted, on August 3, 1949, in an indictment containing two counts, the first alleging a violation of Section 241, and the second a violation of Section 242, of Title 18 of said code. They were arraigned, entered pleas of not guilty, and were tried before a jury. The jury were discharged by the judge after it became apparent that they could not agree on a verdict, and a mistrial was declared. On February 1, 1950, appellants and eight others were again indicted on three counts, the first charging a conspiracy in violation of Section 371 of said title; the second and third charging a violation of said Section 242. All the defendants filed a plea of former jeopardy, also a motion to dismiss the indictment because it failed to charge a crime against the laws of the United States. The plea was denied and the motion to dismiss overruled. The defendants then entered pleas of not guilty, were tried jointly, and found not guilty on counts one and three of the indictment. All were found not guilty on count two, except appellants Lynch and Hartline, sheriff and deputy sheriff, respectively, of Dade County, Georgia, each of whom was sentenced to imprisonment for one year and to pay a fine of $1,000.

On this appeal, we are concerned only with the conviction of Lynch and Hartline under count two of the indictment, which in substance charges that Lynch, as sheriff, and Hartline, Bleakley, and McCauley, his deputies, acting under color of law, statutes, ordinances, and regulations, of the State of Georgia and the County of Dade, did willfully and knowingly subject, and cause to be subjected, certain named negroes to the deprivation of rights, privileges, and immunities, secured to them by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, viz.: not to be denied equal protection of the laws; to be immune while in custody, control, and under arrest, from illegal assault, battery, and torture; not to be subjected to trial by ordeal; not to be subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment while in custody, control, or under arrest; but each of whom was entitled to the rights and privileges of trial in accordance with law, and by due process of law; and, if found guilty, to be sentenced and punished in accordance with law.

The indictment alleges that the appellants arrested, detained, and held under their custody and control, certain named negroes, while the other named defendants, and many unknown persons who were hooded, robed, and disguised, in Ku Klux Klan regalia, and were acting in concert with the named defendants, caused a cross to be burned; that they handed over the named negroes to the other non-officer defendants and to the unknown hooded and robed persons, all of whom detained and carried away the named negroes and beat them without a trial or due process of law; that the appellants, acting under color of the law and authority aforesaid, willfully and knowingly failed and refused to afford equal protection of the law to the named negroes, and failed and refused to afford them any protection of the law whatsoever.

Appellants contend that there is not substantial evidence to support the jury's verdict; that the trial court erred in overruling their plea of former jeopardy, and in refusing to sustain their motion to dismiss court two of the indictment.

The former trial of the appellants and the other defendants named in the indictment lasted over five weeks, and resulted in a mistrial. A new indictment was returned, which predicated the conspiracy count upon Section 371 of Title 18, rather than Section 241, which this court had held inapplicable as to the conspiracy count alleged in the indictment in the case of Williams, v. United States, 5 Cir., 179 F.2d 644, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court on April 23, 1951. 340 U.S. 849, 71 S.Ct. 77. Appellants' plea of former jeopardy did not complain that the jury on the former trial had not been given ample time in which to reach a verdict, because that jury deliberated more than 48 hours without a vote being changed. When the mistrial was declared, the Government was at liberty to try the appellants again on the same indictment or to obtain a new indictment. A mistrial in a case is no bar to a subsequent trial of defendants.

The appellants assign many reasons to support their contention that the trial court erred in refusing to sustain their motion to dismiss count two of the indictment, but we do not find sufficient merit in any of them to warrant us in granting a reversal of this case. Under the new rules of criminal procedure, it is only necessary to charge the offense in the language of the statute so as to put the defendants on notice of the accusation against them. In this case the indictment does that, in addition to describing in detail the acts which transpired whereby the victims in this case were deprived of their constitutional rights in violation of the statute. The indictment carefully and properly alleges the willfulness necessary to constitute a violation of Section 242 of said Title 18. The federal constitutional rights involved under count two of this indictment are embraced in the portion of the Fourteenth Amendment that reads as follows: "Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The rights involved in the foregoing portion of the Fourteenth Amendment are these: the rights of persons under state arrest not to be deprived of their personal security (which is embraced within the word "liberty") except in accord with due process of law, and also the rights of such persons to equal protection of the laws. "Equal protection of the laws" in turn includes the right to be tried and punished in the same manner as others accused of crime are tried and punished, the right to protection from injury from the officers having them in charge, and the right of protection by the officers from injury sought to be inflicted upon them as prisoners from third persons. Only as to the last named right does this case present any feature that has not already been adjudicated.

In Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 106, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 1038, 89 L.Ed. 1495, the Supreme Court stated: "Likewise, it is plain that basic to the concept of due process of law in a criminal case is a trial — a trial in a court of law, not a `trial by ordeal.' Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 285, 56 S.Ct. 461, 465, 80 L.Ed. 682 * * *. Those who decide to take the law into their own hands and act as prosecutor, jury, judge, and executioner plainly act to deprive a prisoner of the trial...