Bell v. Maryland
Encyclopedia
Bell v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 226 (1964), provided an opportunity for the Supreme Court of the United States
to determine whether racial discrimination
in the provision of public accommodations by a privately-owned restaurant violated the Equal Protection
and Due Process
Clauses of the 14th Amendment
to the United States Constitution
. However, due to a supervening change in the state law, the Court vacated
the judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals
and remanded the case to allow that court to determine whether the convictions for criminal trespass
of twelve African American
students should be dismissed.
at Hooper's restaurant in downtown
Baltimore, Maryland
, where they had been refused service. When they refused to leave, they were arrested, convicted of criminal trespass in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, and fined $10. They appealed their convictions to the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals, which upheld their conviction. They then appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted certiorari
.
noted that both the City of Baltimore and Maryland had passed laws forbidding racial discrimination by an owner or operator of a place of public accommodation. The state antidiscrimination statute went further and forbade discrimination in public accommodations for sleeping or eating on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. The opinion, consistent with the Court's practice when a significant supervening change in law has occurred, vacated the criminal convictions of the students and remanded the case back to the Maryland Court of Appeals to allow it to consider whether the convictions should be dismissed under the current state law. The Court noted that the common law
of Maryland held that when the legislature has repealed a criminal statute or otherwise makes conduct that once was a crime legal, a state court would dismiss any pending criminal proceeding charging such conduct. Lastly, the majority opinion noted that although Maryland had a savings statute, which preserves criminal convictions and penalties when criminal statutes are amended, reenacted, revised, or repealed, unless the legislation implementing the amendment, reenactment, revision, or repeal expressly provided that such convictions or penalties should be reduced or vacated. The Court did not believe that the Maryland savings statute would be applicable to the new antidiscrimination statute.
The concurring opinion by Justice Goldberg states that, while the majority opinion is correct, if the case were properly before the Court, under the Fourteenth Amendment the cases should be vacated. The concurring opinion by Justice Douglas would reach the merits of the case and vacate the convictions with direction that the cases be dismissed. The dissenting opinion by Justice Black would affirm the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to the convictions for criminal trespass on private property.
, 378 U.S. 130 (1964), Barr v. City of Columbia
, 378 U.S. 146 (1964), Robinson v. Florida
, 378 U.S. 153 (1964), and Bouie v. City of Columbia
, 378 U.S. 347 (1964). In none of these cases did the Supreme Court reach the merits of any argument addressing whether private actions of segregation which are enforced by state courts constituted a state action
which violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. These decisions were announced two days after the Senate
ended a filibuster
and passed the bill which would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964
, which outlawed segregation in public accommodations. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court refrained from reaching the merits in these cases in consideration of the Act, had it done so it would have eliminated the basis for passing the legislation.
, the named defendant in the case. Robert Bell's listing as the named defendant was accidental as his name was alphabetically first among the thirteen arrested students.
The Bell case was remanded by the Supreme Court essentially to determine whether a pending conviction for activity in protest of segregation should be vacated when the segregated activity became proscribed by later state legislation. The Supreme Court later answered this question affirmatively in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306 (1964), for prosecutions for activities protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Robert M. Bell later became an attorney and in 1984 was appointed as a Judge to the Maryland Court of Appeals, a court that had ruled against him in Bell v. Maryland, and where he became its Chief Judge in 1996. That court's prior Chief Judge was Robert C. Murphy
, who when he had been a deputy attorney general attempted to uphold Bell's trespassing conviction for the sit-in and is listed by name on the state's brief to the Supreme Court in the case.
The Maryland state archives, as a teaching tool, has posted all of the legal papers associated with the case from each of its phases online.
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
to determine whether racial discrimination
Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
in the provision of public accommodations by a privately-owned restaurant violated the Equal Protection
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
and Due Process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
Clauses of the 14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
to the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. However, due to a supervening change in the state law, the Court vacated
Vacated judgment
A vacated judgment makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court....
the judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals
Maryland Court of Appeals
The Court of Appeals of Maryland is the supreme court of the U.S. state of Maryland. The court, which is composed of one chief judge and six associate judges, meets in the Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal Building in the state capital, Annapolis...
and remanded the case to allow that court to determine whether the convictions for criminal trespass
Trespass
Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels and trespass to land.Trespass to the person, historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding, mayhem, and maiming...
of twelve African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
students should be dismissed.
Background
In 1960 twelve African American students were part of a group which conducted a sit-inSit-in
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...
at Hooper's restaurant in downtown
Downtown Baltimore
Downtown Baltimore is the section of Baltimore traditionally bounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to the west, Mt. Royal Avenue to the north, President Street to the east and the Inner Harbor area to the south. It consists of four neighborhoods: Westside, City Centre, Inner Harbor, and...
Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, where they had been refused service. When they refused to leave, they were arrested, convicted of criminal trespass in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, and fined $10. They appealed their convictions to the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals, which upheld their conviction. They then appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
.
Court's decision
Although the Court had been briefed regarding whether the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment were applicable to the restaurant, the majority opinionMajority opinion
In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision....
noted that both the City of Baltimore and Maryland had passed laws forbidding racial discrimination by an owner or operator of a place of public accommodation. The state antidiscrimination statute went further and forbade discrimination in public accommodations for sleeping or eating on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. The opinion, consistent with the Court's practice when a significant supervening change in law has occurred, vacated the criminal convictions of the students and remanded the case back to the Maryland Court of Appeals to allow it to consider whether the convictions should be dismissed under the current state law. The Court noted that the common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
of Maryland held that when the legislature has repealed a criminal statute or otherwise makes conduct that once was a crime legal, a state court would dismiss any pending criminal proceeding charging such conduct. Lastly, the majority opinion noted that although Maryland had a savings statute, which preserves criminal convictions and penalties when criminal statutes are amended, reenacted, revised, or repealed, unless the legislation implementing the amendment, reenactment, revision, or repeal expressly provided that such convictions or penalties should be reduced or vacated. The Court did not believe that the Maryland savings statute would be applicable to the new antidiscrimination statute.
The concurring opinion by Justice Goldberg states that, while the majority opinion is correct, if the case were properly before the Court, under the Fourteenth Amendment the cases should be vacated. The concurring opinion by Justice Douglas would reach the merits of the case and vacate the convictions with direction that the cases be dismissed. The dissenting opinion by Justice Black would affirm the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to the convictions for criminal trespass on private property.
Critical response
Bell v. Maryland was one of five cases involving segregation protests decided on June 22, 1964. The other four cases were Griffin v. MarylandGriffin v. Maryland
Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the convictions of five African Americans who were arrested during a protest of a privately owned amusement park by a park employee who was also a deputy sheriff...
, 378 U.S. 130 (1964), Barr v. City of Columbia
Barr v. City of Columbia
Barr v. Columbia, 378 U.S. 146 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the convictions of five African Americans who were refused service at a lunch counter of a department store based upon a prior Court decision, holding that there was insufficient evidence to support...
, 378 U.S. 146 (1964), Robinson v. Florida
Robinson v. Florida
Robinson v. Florida, 378 U.S. 153 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the convictions of several white and African American persons who were refused service at a restaurant based upon a prior Court decision, holding that a Florida regulation requiring a restaurant...
, 378 U.S. 153 (1964), and Bouie v. City of Columbia
Bouie v. City of Columbia
Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that due process prohibits retroactive application of any judicial construction of a criminal statute that is unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which has been expressed prior...
, 378 U.S. 347 (1964). In none of these cases did the Supreme Court reach the merits of any argument addressing whether private actions of segregation which are enforced by state courts constituted a state action
State actor
In United States law, a state actor is a person who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore subject to regulation under the United States Bill of Rights, including the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating...
which violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. These decisions were announced two days after the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
ended a filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
and passed the bill which would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
, which outlawed segregation in public accommodations. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court refrained from reaching the merits in these cases in consideration of the Act, had it done so it would have eliminated the basis for passing the legislation.
Subsequent developments
The convictions were vacted by the Court of Appeals of Maryland on April 9, 1965, and the City of Baltimore was directed to pay the cost of the appeal to the Supreme Court of $462.93 to Robert M. BellRobert M. Bell
Robert Mack Bell is an American lawyer and jurist from Baltimore, Maryland. Since 1991 he has been a judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in Maryland, and its Chief Judge since 1996 and has been a judge at every level in the Maryland Courts system...
, the named defendant in the case. Robert Bell's listing as the named defendant was accidental as his name was alphabetically first among the thirteen arrested students.
The Bell case was remanded by the Supreme Court essentially to determine whether a pending conviction for activity in protest of segregation should be vacated when the segregated activity became proscribed by later state legislation. The Supreme Court later answered this question affirmatively in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306 (1964), for prosecutions for activities protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Robert M. Bell later became an attorney and in 1984 was appointed as a Judge to the Maryland Court of Appeals, a court that had ruled against him in Bell v. Maryland, and where he became its Chief Judge in 1996. That court's prior Chief Judge was Robert C. Murphy
Robert C. Murphy
Robert C. Murphy was a lawyer and jurist from Baltimore County, Maryland. He served as Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, from 1972 to October 1996...
, who when he had been a deputy attorney general attempted to uphold Bell's trespassing conviction for the sit-in and is listed by name on the state's brief to the Supreme Court in the case.
The Maryland state archives, as a teaching tool, has posted all of the legal papers associated with the case from each of its phases online.
See also
- African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 378