Justice in Georgia

For three months the Sumter County, Ga., jail held four young men--three white, one Negro, all Northerners--who were arrested last August in Americus, during civil rights demonstrations. They were charged with "inciting insurrection," a capital crime in Georgia, so there was no bail (TIME, Nov. 1). Their lawyers believed the state did not care whether the four were ever brought to trial. Said Attorney Morris B. Abram: "These people are being held and offered bail only if they give up their constitutional rights, that is, leave the county, leave the state." And Sumter County Prosecutor Stephen Pace Jr. admitted as much: "We were in hopes that by holding these men we would be able to talk to their lawyers and their people and convince them that this type of activity is not the right way to go about it."

Last week a three-judge federal court, in a two-to-one decision, held unconstitutional the 1871 Georgia insurrection statute under which the four were held. The judges enjoined prosecution of the defendants under that statute and ordered their immediate release on bond on other, lesser charges pending against them.*

The majority opinion, handed down by Chief Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and District Judge Lewis R. Morgan, was based on the Civil Rights Act of 1870, which gives district courts jurisdiction over civil actions by individuals seeking redress of denial of their constitutional rights by a state or its officials. In his dissent, District Judge J. Robert Elliott, a Kennedy appointee with a past record of pro-segregation views, held that a federal court should not interfere in proceedings before state courts.

Prosecutor Pace and other county, city and state officers were given until January by the court to prepare their defense on charges that they engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the civil rights movement in Americus by imposing the insurrection charge. If the action against them succeeds, it would become a precedent that could be used throughout the South to foil official suppression of civil rights activities.

* Two other Negroes, held on lesser charges, were released the same day.

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