LAW DAY 2004

1. LAW DAY 2004 Presented by Judge Bill Filmore www.filmore.net

2. What is Law Day? • Began in 1958 • Law Day, May 1, is a national day of celebration, where we traditionally honor our freedoms as Americans – freedoms protected by our laws and legal institutions • The legal profession has played a major role in ensuring that the rule of law remains strong in our nation, that it pursues justice and defends liberty.

3. Beginning of Law Day • 1957 vision of Washington D.C. attorney Charles S. Rhyne serving as ABA President • Proclamation by President Eisenhower on Feb. 3, 1958

4. Proclamation 1st Paragraph • WHEREAS, it is fitting that the people of this Nation should remember with pride and vigilantly guard the great heritage of liberty, justice and equality under law which our forefathers bequeathed to us; and . . .

5. Congressional Resolution Establishing Law Day (1961) • US Code, Title 36, Section 164The first day of May of each year is hereby designated as Law Day, U.S.A. It is set aside as a special day of celebration by the American people in appreciation of their liberties and the reaffirmation of their loyalty to the United States of America; of their rededication to the ideals of equality and justice under law in their relations with each other as well as with other nations; and for the cultivation of that respect for law that is so vital to the democratic way of life. • The President of the United States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon all public officials to display the flag of the United States on all government buildings on such day and inviting the people of the United States to observe such day with suitable ceremonies and other appropriate ways, through public bodies and private organizations as well as in schools and other suitable places.

6. LAW DAY THEMES • Since 1974 themes have be established for Law Day • The themes since 1997 have been entitled “Celebrate Your Freedom”

7. Individual Themes • 1997 Celebrate Your Freedom: First Amendment Freedoms • 1998 Celebrate Your Freedom: Due Process Guarantees • 1999 Celebrate Your Freedom: The Quest for Equality • 2000 Celebrate Your Freedom: Speak Up for Democracy and Diversity • 2001 Celebrate Your Freedom: Protecting the Best Interests of Our Children • 2002 Celebrate Your Freedom: Assuring Equal Justice for All • 2003 Celebrate Your Freedom: Independent Courts Protect Our Liberties

8. For 2004 - The Theme is… To Win Equality by Law: Brown vs. Board of Education

9. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • The Supreme Court of the US ruled that separate but equal railroad cars for blacks and white passengers did not violate equal protection: • The object of the (14th) Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality.

10. Justice John Marshall Harlan • Harlan is best known for his eloquent dissent in the 1896 case, Plessy vs Ferguson, which upheld a Louisiana law requiring blacks and whites to ride in separate railroad cars. Harlan criticized the Court's adoption of the "separate but equal" doctrine in these memorable words: "Our Constitution is color blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."

11. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DEFERRED • THE NATION ADOPTED RACIAL SEGREGATION AS PUBLIC POLICY in the 1896 United States Supreme Court decision, Plessy v Ferguson. • The Plessy case centered on segregated seating in passenger cars on Louisiana trains. After this decision segregation spread in public accommodations and schools.

12. Jim Crow Laws • From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). • From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. • The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.

13. Examples of Jim Crow Laws in Alabama • Nurses No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed. • Buses All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races. • Railroads The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. • RestaurantsIt shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment. • Pool and Billiard Rooms It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. • Toilet Facilities, Male Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities.

14. The One who laid the ground work • You have a large number of people who have never heard of Charlie Houston. • That man was the engineer of all of it… if you do it legally, Charlie Houston made it possible. • Thurgood Marshall

15. Houston was born in 1895 in Washington D.C. 1915 Graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College Graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1922 He was first African-American Editor of Harvard Law Review Vice-Dean (1929-35) of Howard Law School training ¼ of nation’s black law students. 1935-40 Special Counsel to NAACP Charlie Houston

16. Charlie Houston (con’t) • 1935-48 – Argued 8 cases before the US Supreme Court and won 7. • April 26, 1950, Died at age of 54. • Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, “when Brown v. Board of Education was being argued in the Supreme Court, … there were some two dozen lawyers on the side of the Negroes fighting for their schools,… and of those thirty lawyers … there were only two who hadn’t been touched by Charlie Houston.” • Federal Circuit Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. wrote: “You must understand this: without Brown there would have been no civil rights movement, no civil rights act and no voting rights act. Without Houston there would have been no Brown.”

17. Houston paved the way for Brown • Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) The University of Missouri refused to admit Lloyd Gaines to its law school because it believed the school was only for whites. It was common for the state to send black students to neighboring states for courses of study not offered in the black schools. Since Missouri did not have a separate and equal law school for African Americans, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Gaines must be allowed to attend the University of Missouri Law School.

18. McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (1950) • The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that George W. McLaurin, a student who was required to eat and study at separate tables, must be treated the same as white students. • Chief Justice Fred Vinson said in the ruling that separate accommodations denied McLaurin “his personal and present rights to equal protection of the laws” under the 14th Amendment. • Continuing, Vinson said “McLaurin must receive the same treatment . . . as students of other races.”

19. Sweatt v. Painter (1950) • This case was an important predecessor to Brown v. Board of Education, because the U.S. Supreme Court decided 9-0 that the “separate but equal” doctrine established in the Plessy case was unworkable and ultimately doomed.

20. Combined Brown Cases 1951-54 • Five cases from Delaware, Kansas, Washington, D.C., South Carolina and Virginia were appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court combined these cases into a single case which eventually became Brown v. Board of Education. This grouping was significant because it showed school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one. The five case were: • Delaware – Belton v. Gebhart (Bulah v. Gebhart) • Kansas – Brown v. Board of Education • Washington, D.C. – Bolling v. Sharp • South Carolina – Biggs v. Elliot • Virginia – Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County

21. Delaware – Belton v. Gebhart (Bulah v. Gebhart) • A Delaware court ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to immediate admission to White public schools. • In both of the Gebhart cases, the court ruled that the plaintiffs were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the 11 children involved be immediately admitted to Delaware’s White schools. The board of education appealed the decision. (Only case where the Plaintiffs won below)

22. Washington, D.C. – Bolling v. Sharp • Charles Houston provided legal representation for the Consolidated Parents Group, who, under the direction of Gardner Bishop, attempted to enroll a group of Black students in all White John Philip Sousa Junior High School, in Washington, D.C. • In 1950 while preparing the Bolling case, Charles Hamilton Houston suffered a heart attack. As a result he asked colleague and friend James Nabritt, Jr. to help Gardner Bishop and his group. At that point the equalization of facilities idea was dropped and Nabritt replaced it with a challenge to segregation per se. • The Bolling case became one of the consolidated Brown cases. The U. S. Supreme Court would eventually file a separate opinion on Bolling because the 14th Amendment was not applicable in Washington, D.C.

23. South Carolina – Biggs v. Elliot • This South Carolina case went to trial. Marshall and the NAACP presented a vast array of social science evidence showing how segregation harmed Black school children, including evidence from sociologist Kenneth Clark's controversial "Doll Study." • The U. S. District Court denied the Briggs plaintiff’s request to order desegregation of Clarendon County, SC, schools and instead ordered the equalization of Black schools. Judge Julius Waring was the lone dissenter.

24. Virginia – Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County • NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, a challenge to Virginia's segregated schools. • Davis et al. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., was another of the cases eventually consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education.

25. Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (con’t) • Moton High was typical of the all-black schools in the central Virginia county. • It was built in 1939 to hold half as many students as it did by the early 1950s; its teachers were paid substantially less than teachers at the all-white high school; and it had no gymnasium, cafeteria, or auditorium with fixed seats like the nearby white Farmville High had. • Repeated attempts made by Moton's principal and PTA to convince the school board to erect a new black high school were fruitless. • So, in the spring of 1951, the students, led by 16 year-old Barbara Johns, took matters into their own hands. • They went on strike and asked for help from the NAACP's special counsel for the Southeastern region of the United States.

26. Farmville vs. MotonSeparate but Equal?

27. Farmville vs. MotonSeparate but Equal?

28. Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (con’t) • The NAACP lawyers told the striking students that the only way the organization could commit to getting involved in the students' cause was to sue for the end of segregation itself. • This was a huge step beyond the students' goal of obtaining a new school building! • After thinking it over very carefully and gathering the support of their parents, the students agreed to challenge segregation directly. • On May 23, 1951, a NAACP lawyer, on behalf of 117 Moton students and their parents, filed suit in the federal district court in Richmond.

29. Brown vs. Board • Thirteen parents volunteered to participate in a case that was initiated by members of the local NAACP chapter in Topeka, Kansas. • In the summer of 1950, they took their children to schools in their neighborhoods and attempted to enroll them for the upcoming school year. All were refused admission. The children were forced to attend one of the four schools in the city for African Americans. For most this involved traveling some distance from their homes.

30. These parents filed suit against the Topeka Board of Education on behalf of their children. Oliver Brown, a minister, was the first parent listed in the suit, so the case came to named after him. Linda Carol Brown—who is seven-years-old and lives in Topeka, Kansas—has to walk across railroad tracks and take an old bus to get to school, even though there is a better school five blocks from her house. Linda can't go to that school because she is black, and the schools in Topeka are segregated. Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg of the NAACP Legal Defense represented the Plaintiffs. Rev. Oliver L. Brown and daughter Linda Carol Brown Brown vs. Board • Monroe Elementary School is now an Historic Site maintained by National Park Service.

31. U.S. Supreme Court Decision • On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. • State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. • This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier and served as a catalyst for the expanding civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s. • In 1955, the Court ordered that the schools in Brown be integrated under supervision of the district courts “with all deliberate speed.”

32. End and Beginning • The Court’s decision in 1954 was both an end and a beginning. • The doctrine of “separate but equal” was officially refuted, but a new round of battles was about to begin over the necessity, extent, and pace of integration in schools around the country. Students entered Central High School in Little Rock under the protection of federal troops.

33. 1930 Lincoln U. (cum laude) 1933 Law Degree Howard U. magna cum laude 1940-1961 Legal Director of NAACP – 29 Sup. Ct. victories 1954 Brown v. Board 1961 Appointed Circuit Judge 1965 Appointed U.S. Solicitor General by Pres. Johnson 1967 Becomes the 1st African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court 1991 Retires from Supreme Ct. 1993 Dies at 84 Thurgood Marshall

34. The lawyers were the ones who changed the course of America. In the decades leading up to Brown, these lawyers progressively chipped away at the legal structure fortifying segregation. The legal profession must be as varied and diverse as the public to retain its essential role as connecting link with the rule of law. Data indicate that although society rapidly is becoming more diverse, the legal profession remains mostly white. The Lawyers

35. Alabama Lawyers • In-state 11,632 • Out-of-State 2,089 • Total = 13,721 • Male 10,225 = 75% • Female 3,496 = 25% • Caucasian 12,942 = 94% • African American 726 = 5.3% • Other 53 = 0.4%

36. This Law Day, as we celebrate our freedoms as Americans, let us rededicate ourselves to working toward making rhetoric and reality one.

37. THE END Presented by Judge Bill Filmore www.filmore.net

38. DALE COUNTYDISTRICT COURT

39. Federal Court

40. Alabama State Courts

41. 33RD JUDICIAL CIRCUIT DALE GENEVA

42. Judge Bill Filmore • DALE COUNTY, DISTRICT COURT, PLACE ONE • Civil Division • Small Claims Division • Criminal Division • Traffic Division • Child Support Division • Ex Officio Circuit Judge for DR

43. CIVIL • SMALL CLAIMS DIVISION • Up to $1,500 • $1,500 to $3,000 • Exclusive Jurisdiction Rests with District Court • CIVIL DIVISION • $3,000 to $10,000 (Concurrent with Circuit Court)

44. Small Claims • Improvements in Court • Begin at 8:30 a.m., support mediation, notice of case and trial procedure • Types of Cases • Individual collections of money for rent or personal loans • Disputes concerning car repairs • Consumer type complaints • Instant Cash Company Collections

45. District Civil • Improvements in Court • Start cases at 1:30 p.m. on afternoon of frequent Small Claims docket • Types of Cases • Evictions • Collection of loans by companies • Car accidents within jurisdictional amount

46. DISTRICT CRIMINAL • Type of Cases – Misdemeanors • NWNI • Possession of Marihuana 2nd • Possession of Paraphernalia • Assault • Harassment • Reckless Endangerment • Criminal Trespass • Game & Fish Violations • Gambling

47. NWNI • Greatest number of cases • $1 amount of check can result in a fine of $20 plus costs of $323+ • Usually result of people not having the money and not getting money to take care of before court. • Reflects economic conditions

48. Possession of Marijuana • Fine $600 + • Up to 1 year in jail • Costs of Court $234 minimum • Driver’s License suspended for 6 months • Court Referral Program • 2nd Offense of Possession is Felony

49. DISTRICT CRIMINAL • Felony Cases • First Appearance Hearings • Appoint Attorneys to Indigent • Bond Hearings • Preliminary Hearings • Improvements in Court • Begin Court & Call Docket at 8:30 a.m. • Improved forms to facilitate handling of cases • Require CRO Program • Use Camera for First Appearance Hearings

50. TRAFFIC COURT • 4,400 cases a year • Traffic offenses committed in Dale County • Tickets written by State Troopers • Police in Cities that don’t have a Municipal Court