McLucas v. Palmer
| Decision Date | 12 January 1970 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 13593. |
| Citation | 309 F. Supp. 1353 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
| Parties | Lonnie McLUCAS, Rose Marie Smith, Warren Kimbro, George Edwards, Plaintiffs, v. Honorable Aaron J. PALMER, a Judge of the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut, Defendant. |
Theodore I. Koskoff, Bridgeport, Conn., for plaintiff McLucas.
L. Scott Melville, of Merchant, Melville, Spear & Seymour, Bridgeport, Conn., for plaintiff Smith.
George A. Johnson, New Haven, Conn., for plaintiff Kimbro.
W. Paul Flynn, of Kopkind & Flynn, New Haven, Conn., for plaintiff Edwards.
Arnold Markle, State's Atty. for New Haven County, and Denis Gaffney, Asst. State's Atty. for New Haven County, for defendant.
QUESTION PRESENTED
Plaintiffs, members of the Black Panther Party, are charged as defendants in criminal proceedings which have been pending for several months in the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut, New Haven County, with various crimes, including first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, kidnapping resulting in death, aiding and abetting first degree murder and binding.
On November 7, 1969, in anticipation of the trial and other proceedings in the Superior Court in these cases, Honorable Aaron J. Palmer, a Judge of the Superior Court, entered an order, later modified on November 12, 1969, to regulate courthouse procedure.
Plaintiffs on December 16, 1969 filed a complaint in this Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin enforcement of the aforesaid order, or to halt the state court criminal proceedings while the order is in effect. Plaintiffs' motions in this Court, filed simultaneously with the complaint, to convene a three-judge district court and for issuance of a temporary restraining order to enjoin enforcement of the order, or to halt the state court criminal proceedings while the order is in effect, present the threshold question of this Court's jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action.
After a hearing on December 17, 1969 at which counsel for all parties were fully heard and after considering plaintiffs' complaint, motions, exhibits and briefs by counsel for all parties, the Court concludes that it does not have jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action. Accordingly, plaintiffs' motions to convene a three-judge district court and for issuance of a temporary restraining order are denied; and the complaint is dismissed.
Plaintiffs' verified complaint seeks the convening of a three-judge district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284 (1964) to declare invalid and to enjoin enforcement of the "Order for Courthouse Procedure", or to halt the state court criminal proceedings against plaintiffs, on the grounds that the order is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to plaintiffs and that its enforcement is causing irreparable harm to plaintiffs.
Each of the plaintiffs is a "black citizen" and a member of the Black Panther Party.
Plaintiffs, together with others, are co-defendants in criminal proceedings initiated by the State of Connecticut and presently pending in the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut, New Haven County.1 Specifically, plaintiffs McLucas and Kimbro are charged with kidnapping resulting in death, kidnapping, first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and binding (Conn.Gen.Stat. §§ 53-27, 53-9, 54-197, 53-19); plaintiff Edwards is charged with kidnapping resulting in death, kidnapping, aiding and abetting first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and binding (Conn. Gen.Stat. §§ 53-27, 53-9, 54-196, 54-197, 53-19); plaintiff Smith is charged with kidnapping, aiding and abetting murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and binding (Conn.Gen.Stat. §§ 53-27, 53-9, 54-196, 54-197 and 53-19).
Defendant is the Honorable Aaron J. Palmer, a Judge of the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut.
The order in question issued by Judge Palmer on November 7, 1969, as modified November 12, inter alia, prohibits demonstrations within 500 feet of the courthouse, requires all persons except counsel and law enforcement personnel entering the courthouse to be searched for weapons, and bars participants in the case from giving interviews or making extrajudicial statements designed to disclose prejudicial matters about the cases.2
On November 12, plaintiffs filed a motion before Judge Palmer in the Superior Court to vacate the order; no decision has been rendered on this motion, the court having reserved decision. Also on November 12, Judge Palmer denied plaintiffs' motion for a stay of proceedings pending final determination by the state and federal courts of the legality of the order in question. On November 25, Chief Justice King of the Connecticut Supreme Court granted plaintiffs leave to file their petition for writs of mandamus and prohibition to require Judge Palmer to vacate the order in question; and simultaneously Chief Justice King dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction.
Plaintiffs allege that the aforementioned "Order for Courthouse Procedure" deprives them of their constitutional rights in various respects and threatens them with irreparable injury.
In addition to seeking declaratory and injunctive relief through the convening of a three-judge district court, plaintiffs seek a temporary restraining order pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284(3) to enjoin enforcement of the order or, in the alternative, to halt the state court criminal proceedings against plaintiffs while the order is in effect.
Plaintiffs allege jurisdiction in this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343(3) and (4), 2201, 2202, 2281 (1964) and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983 (1964); and under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
The complaint in the instant case clearly does not allege grounds for convening a three-judge district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281 (1964).
Section 2281, which is the only statutory basis for a three-judge district court, provides:
"An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute or of an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes, shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title."
Plaintiffs do not claim that any state statute under which they are being prosecuted is unconstitutional. At issue, rather, is the constitutionality of an order regulating courthouse procedure issued by a state court judge. Since the action of the state court judge in promulgating such order is entirely unrelated to the constitutionality of any state statute, the requirement for the convening of a three-judge court pursuant to § 2281, that the constitutionality of a state statute be drawn into question, has not been satisfied. Johnson v. Lee, 281 F.Supp. 650, 657 (D.Conn.1968), plaintiffs' motion for a stay denied by Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on February 19, 1968.
Moreover, despite the ingenious argument of plaintiffs' counsel to the contrary, the Court holds that Judge Palmer's order here in question is not "an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes" within the meaning of § 2281; nor does invocation of the judicial power of the state pursuant to Article Fifth, Section 1, of the Connecticut Constitution of 1965 transform concededly valid judicial action into a statutory enactment for the purposes of § 2281.
The complaint, insofar as it seeks to have a three-judge district court convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281 and a temporary restraining order issued pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284(3), must be dismissed.
Although the complaint does not invoke the jurisdiction of this Court other than pursuant to the three-judge district court statute, the Court nevertheless construes the oral argument and brief of plaintiffs' counsel to invoke, in the alternative, the Court's jurisdiction as a single-judge court.
At the outset, an injunction to stay already commenced criminal proceedings in the Superior Court would appear to be barred by 28 U.S.C. § 2283 (1964) which 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 protect or effectuate its judgments."
Cf. Turner v. LaBelle, 251 F.Supp. 443, 446 (D.Conn.1966).
The prohibition of Section 2283 by its terms does not apply, however, where another Act of Congress grants an exception. And the question remains open whether the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1964), here invoked by plaintiffs, authorizes such an exception. See Cameron v. Johnson, 381 U.S. 741 (1965); cf. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 484 n. 2 (1965). Moreover, assuming without deciding that Section 2283 does prohibit a federal court injunction enjoining state court proceedings already in progress, it would not bar the granting of declaratory relief independently of the request for injunctive relief against the enforcement of a state statute (if one were here involved). Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 254-55 (1967).
For the reasons stated below, the Court does not believe it to be either necessary or appropriate to rest its decision upon the prohibition of Section 2283, and it expressly does not do so.
By this seventh decade of the twentieth century, few principles are more firmly established in our federated system of government in this Country than the principle...
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