Essay: BREACHING THE WHITE WALL OF SOUTHERN JUSTICE

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Several other suggestions for improving the Southern jury system have been advanced. One idea: appointing federal jury registrars, like the new, federal voting registrars. Another: a population-sampling system designed to prevent subjective judgments in venire drawing; panels would be selected from among those in a community who are citizens, over 21, have no criminal convictions within a specified period, and can read, write and understand English.

Juries aside, the new civil rights bill also strengthens section 241 of Title 18 in the U.S. Code that prohibits conspiracy to deprive citizens of their federal rights. In the revised sections, conspiracy need no longer be proved—a single act will be sufficient. Nor will the act need to be carried out by an official—a private individual's act will be similarly punishable. Penalties are on a sliding scale from one year to life. Still not specifically covered are acts of violence unrelated to civil rights issues, and some Negro leaders feel that ways must be found to cover these too. Some advocate virtually automatic transfer of all cases involving Negroes from state to federal courts, but Melvin Wulf of the American Civil Liberties Union says: "This would not really solve anything. It wasn't what the federal courts were meant to do, sit on all local crimes. This would literally be making a federal case out of everything."

Two other areas in which civil rights leaders feel improvement can be made:

∙ EMPLOYMENT. The Constitution already entitles Negroes to fair employment in state and federal courthouses and police forces; Congress could easily and properly pass new laws to enforce that right. Such measures would not guarantee the election or appointment of Negro judges. But they would give Negro lawyers a chance to be considered, and a fair appointment system would surely place some Negroes among the large numbers of other functionaries—cops, clerks, bailiffs, stenographers—who now shore up segregated white justice.

∙ ENFORCEMENT. Nothing is more frustrating to Southern Negroes than to see FBI agents standing around taking copious notes while local white cops or hoodlums engage in large-scale civil rights violations. Actually, federal officers already are legally empowered to make on-the-spot arrests for any violation of federal laws; the only thing that stops them is Government policy. Criticism of this restraint has led to calls for a special police force to handle civil rights matters. The more reasonable alternative to such massive intervention would be stricter enforcement of existing laws.

Ideally, the South's own state courts should rediscover the U.S. Constitution and eliminate the need for overexpanding federal jurisdiction. Such hopes are not entirely groundless. With new courage, for example, the Mississippi Supreme Court last February voided the death sentence of a Negro convicted of raping a white woman, on the ground that his jury excluded Negroes. In Alabama, a federal court recently ordered Lowndes County to put Negroes on venire lists.