Maryland v. Brown

311 F. Supp. 1164, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11987
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedApril 22, 1970
DocketCrim. No. 70-0161
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 311 F. Supp. 1164 (Maryland v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Maryland v. Brown, 311 F. Supp. 1164, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11987 (D. Md. 1970).

Opinion

FRANK A. KAUFMAN, District Judge.

H. Rap Brown seeks, for a second time, to remove his prosecution by the State of Maryland from a Maryland nisi prius Court to this Federal Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1443(1). Brown’s first such attempt was denied by this Court on January 23, 1969. Maryland v. Brown, 295 F.Supp. 63 (D.Md.1969), aff’d per curiam, Mem.Dec.No. 13,322 (4th Cir., filed June 7, 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1029, 90 S.Ct. 585, 24 L.Ed.2d 525 (Jan. 21, 1970), Mr. Justice Douglas dissenting as to denial of certiorari. Thereafter, on March 9, 1970, trial proceedings commenced in the Circuit Court for Harford County. On [1165]*1165March 18, 1970, Judge Harry E. Dyer, Jr., sitting in that Court, after earlier denying a defense motion to transfer, ordered the ease transferred to the Circuit Court for Howard County. On April 20, 1970, the within petition for removal was filed but was not perfected under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(e) until yesterday, April 21, 1970, when after the denial of certain defense motions by Judge James Macgill, sitting in the Circuit Court for Howard County, defense counsel filed a copy of the aforesaid April 20th removal petition with the Clerk of that latter state court.

Subsequently, yesterday, during the late afternoon, the State, in this proceeding in this Court, filed a Motion to Dismiss and Remand, and counsel for both petitioner and respondent presented their respective contentions in a two-hour nonevidentiary hearing.

This Court’s consideration of the questions raised herein starts, as it did in January, 1969, with the applicable provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1443(1). The Supreme Court of the United States, in Georgia v. Rachel, 384 U.S. 780, 86 S.Ct. 1783, 16 L.Ed.2d 925 (1966), and City of Greenwood, Miss. v. Peacock, 384 U.S. 808, 86 S.Ct. 1800, 16 L.Ed.2d 944 (1966), has established that section 1443(1) speaks

not only * * * of the type of right asserted, i.e., a racially oriented right, but also of the need, at the very least, “for clear and convincing evidence” to demonstrate “a basis for ‘firm prediction’ of inability to enforce” that right. (City of Greenwood v. Peacock, supra, 384 U.S. at 852, 86 S.Ct. at 1825 (Dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, joined by Chief Justice Warren and Justices Brennan and Fortas in which less stringent standards for removal are advocated than those established in the majority opinion)). Maryland v. Brown, supra, at 77.

Counsel for Brown contend that this case, in its present posture, poses issues different from those determined by this Court upon Brown’s first petition for removal. In so doing, they stress that blacks form only approximately 5% of the total population of Howard County as contrasted to about 10% in Harford County and almost 331/3% in Dorchester County, from which the case was transferred to Harford County on July 17, 1968 by Judge C. Burnam Mace, sitting in the Circuit Court for Dorchester County, 295 F. Supp. at 70-72. In his first removal petition, Brown stated that “the transfer from Dorchester to Harford County will, among other things, force petitioner to stand trial before a jury selected from an almost lily-white county compared to Dorchester County * * 295 F. Supp. at 72. This Court held, inter alia (295 F.Supp. at 78):

The fact that the removee county has a smaller percentage of blacks than Dorchester County, in the absence of any other evidence, is not sufficient to constitute “clear and convincing' evidence” that Brown has been or will be denied equal protection under any civil rights law or under the Fourteenth Amendment. This is particularly true in light of Brown’s right of further removal. [Footnote omitted].

Earlier (at 77), this Court had noted:

To begin with, defendant has a right to ask for a further change of venue. Maryland Rule 738 c. Such a further change might well cause the trial to be held in a Maryland jurisdiction with a higher percentage of Negroes in its population than Harford County and perhaps with a percentage of Negroes in its population substantially the same as in or greater than the population of Dorchester County.

Under Maryland Rule 738 c, petitioner has been provided with the opportunity to seek further removal from Howard County to the nisi prius. court of another Maryland jurisdiction by making a “suggestion in writing under oath” that he “cannot have a fair and impartial trial” in the Circuit Court for Howard County (Maryland Rule 542 a) and by making “it satisfactorily appear” to the Circuit [1166]*1166Court for Howard County that “such suggestion is true or that there is reasonable ground for the same.” If a trial by jury as guaranteed to petitioner by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution could not be afforded to petitioner in Howard County, this Court has no doubt that the Circuit Court of that county would transfer the case to another Maryland jurisdiction.

As Mr. Justice Douglas, dissenting in Peacock, wrote (supra at 852, 86 S.Ct. at 1825):

A district judge could not lightly assume that the state court would shirk its responsibilities, and should remand the case to the state court unless it appeared by clear and convincing evidence that the allegations of an inability to enforce equal civil rights were true. * * *

Assuming the truth and accuracy of all of petitioner’s allegations herein, there is no basis for any “firm prediction” of inability of the Circuit Court for Howard County to provide a trial for petitioner as mandated by the Federal Constitution. Thus, as was the case in connection with Brown’s first removal petition, his allegations, even if assumed to be true, fail to satisfy the tests set out in Rachel and in both the majority and dissenting opinions in Peacock. This Court will not further review herein the reasons and analyses set forth in its earlier opinion in which this Court reviewed the opinions of the Fourth Circuit and of this Court in connection with Brown’s indictment on August 14, 1967 by the Grand Jury of Dorchester County for arson, riot and inciting to riot. United States ex rel. Brown v. Fogel, 395 F.2d 291 (4th Cir. 1968), and 387 F.2d 692 (4th Cir. 1967); and Chester et al. v. Kinnamon et al., 276 F.Supp. 717 (D.Md.1967). Suffice it to say that the developments in this case since this Court filed its opinion in January, 1969 and the differences in population percentages between Harford and Howard counties present no requirement for a different result.

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Bluebook (online)
311 F. Supp. 1164, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11987, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/maryland-v-brown-mdd-1970.