Civil Rights: Toward Outlawing Murder

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CIVIL RIGHTS Toward Outlawing Murder

In the inexorable tide of new rightsbills that has flowed from an increasingly enlightened Congress in the past decade, there has remained one area of ironic negligence: the lack of strong federal laws against racial murder. Given the intransigence of many Southern juries, often nothing more than a fuzzy, fragile bit of Reconstruction legislation stands between segregationist killers and total freedom. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court moved to sharpen the focus — and the teeth — of those 19th century laws in decisions that dealt with two of the South's most wanton racist slayings: the June 1964 murder of three civil rights workers near Philadelphia, Miss., and the shotgun killing along a Georgia highway three weeks later of Lemuel Penn, a Washington Negro educator. In both cases, the court reversed rulings by Southern federal-court judges and opened the way for further Justice Department prosecutions.

"Color of Law." In the Philadelphia triple killing, the state of Mississippi refused to bring murder charges against 18 suspects, including Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and Philadelphia Cop Richard Willis. Because murder is not a federal offense except when it occurs on U.S.-owned property, Government attorneys prosecuted the 18 on federal charges growing out of an 1870 law. The Government accusations were based on two parts of the law. Section 241 makes it a crime punishable by ten years in prison and a $5,000 fine for "two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the U.S." Section 242 prohibits people from acting "under color of any law" to deprive anyone of his federal rights, an offense punishable by one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

The case came up in Jackson, Miss., in February 1965 before Federal District Judge William Harold Cox. He threw out the indictments under Section 241 on grounds that murder, even if it did involve civil rights, was not within federal jurisdiction. Cox allowed to stand against Rainey, Price and Willis only the charges under Section 242, reasoning that as law officers they were the only suspects actually operating under "the color of law" when the crime was committed.

In a blunt and unanimous reversal of Cox, written by Justice Abe Fortas, the Supreme Court ruled that the suspects must be tried under both sections. "Private persons, jointly engaged with state officials in the prohibited action, are acting 'under color' of law," said Fortas. As for the more punitive Section 241: "Its language embraces all of the rights and privileges secured to citizens by all of the Constitution and all of the laws of the U.S." Thus Rainey, Price & Co. must face trial again.