Virginia v. Rives/Opinion of the Court

by William Strong

United States Supreme Court

100 U.S. 313

Virginia  v.  Rives

The questions presented in this case arise out of the following facts:--

Burwell Reynolds and Lee Reynolds, two colored men, were jointly indicted for murder in the county court of Patrick County, Virginia, at its January Term, 1878. The case having been removed into the Circuit Court of the State, and brought on for trial, the defendants moved the court that the venire, which was composed entirely of the white race, be modified so as to allow one-third thereof to be composed of colored men. This motion was overruled on the ground that the court 'had no authority to change the venire, it appearing (as the record stated) to the satisfaction of the court that the venire had been regularly drawn from the jury-box according to law.' Thereupon the defendants, before the trial, filed their petition, duly verified, praying for a removal of the case into the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Virginia. This petition represented that the petitioners were negroes, aged respectively seventeen and nineteen years, and that the man whom they were charged with having murdered was a white man. It further alleged that the right secured to the petitioners by the law providing for the equal civil rights of all the citizens of the United States was denied to them in the judicial tribunals of the county of Patrick, of which county they are natives and citizens; that by the laws of Virginia all male citizens, twenty-one years of age, and not over sixty, who are entitled to vote and hold office under the Constitution and laws of the State, are made liable to serve as jurors; that this law allows the right, as well as requires the duty, of the race to which the petitioners belong to serve as jurors; yet that the grand jury who found the indictment against them, as well as the jurors summoned to try them, were composed entirely of the white race. The petitioners further represented that they had applied to the judge of the court, to the prosecuting attorney, and to his assistant counsel, that a portion of the jury by which they were to be tried should be composed in part of competent jurors of their own race and color, but that this right had been refused them. The petition further alleged that a strong prejudice existed in the community of the county against them, independent of the merits of the case, and based solely upon the fact that they are negroes, and that the man they were accused of having murdered was a white man. From that fact alone they were satisfied they could not obtain an impartial trial before a jury exclusively composed of the white race. The petitioners further represented that their race had never been allowed the right to serve as jurors, either in civil or criminal cases, in the county of Patrick, in any case, civil or criminal, in which their race had been in any way interested. They therefore prayed that the prosecution might be removed into the Circuit Court of the United States. The State court denied this prayer, and proceeded with the trial, when each of the defendants was convicted. The verdicts and judgments were, however, set aside, and a motion for a removal of the case was renewed on the same petition, and again denied. The defendants were then tried again separately. One was convicted and sentenced, and a bill of exceptions was duly signed and made part of the record. In the other case the jury disagreed.

In this stage of the proceedings a copy of the record was obtained, the cases were, upon petition, ordered to be docketed in the Circuit Court of the United States, Nov. 18, 1878, which was at its next succeeding term after the first application for removal, and a writ of habeas corpus cum causa was issued, by virtue of which the defendants were taken from the jail of Patrick County into the custody of the United States marshal, and they are now held in jail subject to the control of that court.

No motion has been made in the Circuit Court to remand the prosecutions to the State court, but the Commonwealth of Virginia has applied to this court for a rule to show cause why a mandamus should not issue commanding the judge of the District Court of the Western District of Virginia, the Hon. Alexander Rives, to cause to be redelivered by the marshal of said district to the jailer of Patrick County the bodies of the said Lee and Burwell Reynolds, to be dealt with according to the laws of the said Commonwealth. The rule has been granted, and Judge Rives has returned an answer setting forth substantially the facts hereinbefore stated, and averring that the indictments were removed into the Circuit Court of the United States by virtue of sect. 641 of the Revised Statutes.

If the petition filed in the State court before trial, and duly verified by the oath of the defendants, exhibited a sufficient ground for a removal of the prosecutions into the Circuit Court of the United States, they were in legal effect thus removed, and the writ of habeas corpus was properly issued. All proceedings in the State court subsequent to the removals were coram non judice and absolutely void. This, by virtue of the express declaration of sect. 641 of the Revised Statutes, which enacts that, 'upon the filing of such petition, all further proceedings in the State court shall cease, and shall not be resumed except as thereinafter provided.' In Gordon v. Longest (16 Pet. 97), it was ruled by this court that when an application to remove a cause (removable) is made in proper form, and no objection is made to the facts upon which it is founded, 'it is the duty of the State court to 'proceed no further in the cause,' and every step subsequently taken in the exercise of jurisdiction in the case, whether in the same court or in the Court of Appeals, is coram non judice.' To the same effect is Insurance Company v. Dunn, 19 Wall. 214.

It is, therefore, a material inquiry whether the petition of the defendants set forth such facts as made a case for removal, and consequently arrested the jurisdiction of the State court and transferred it to the Federal court. Sect. 641 of the Revised Statutes provides for a removal 'when any civil suit or prosecution is commenced in any State court, for any cause whatsoever, against any person who is denied or cannot enforce in the judicial tribunals of the State, or in the part of the State where such suit or prosecution is pending, any right secured to him by any law providing for the equal civil rights of citizens of the United States,' &c. It declares that such a case may be removed before trial or final hearing.

Was the case of Lee and Burwell Reynolds such a one? Before examining their petition for removal, it is necessary to understand clearly the scope and meaning of this act of Congress. It rests upon the [[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|Fourteenth Amendment]]]]]]]]]]]] of the Constitution and the legislation to enforce its provisions. That amendment declares that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. It was in pursuance of these constitutional provisions that the civil rights statutes were enacted. Sects. 1977, 1978, Rev. Stat. They enact that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other. Sect. 1978 enacts that all citizens of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. The plain object of these statutes, as of the Constitution which authorized them, was to place the colored race, in respect of civil rights, upon a level with whites. They made the rights and responsibilities, civil and criminal, of the two races exactly the same.

The provisions of the [[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|Fourteenth Amendment]]]]]]]]]]]] of the Constitution we have quoted all have reference to State action exclusively, and not to any action of private individuals. It is the State which is prohibited from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, and consequently the statutes partially enumerating what civil rights colored men shall enjoy equally with white persons, founded as they are upon the amendment, are intended for protection against State infringement of those rights. Sect. 641 was also intended for their protection against State action, and against that alone.

It is doubtless true that a State may act through different agencies,-either by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities; and the prohibitions of the amendment extend to all action of the State denying equal protection of the laws, whether it be action by one of these agencies or by another. Congress, by virtue of the fifth section of the [[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|Fourteenth Amendment]]]]]]]]]]]], may enforce the prohibitions whenever they are disregarded by either the Legislative, the Executive, or the Judicial Department of the State. The mode of enforcement is left to its discretion. It may secure the right, that is, enforce its recognition, by removing the case from a State court in which it is denied, into a Federal court where it will be acknowledged. Of this there can be no reasonable doubt. Removal of cases from State courts into courts of the United States has been an acknowledged mode of protecting rights ever since the foundation of the government. Its constitutionality has never been seriously doubted. But it is still a question whether the remedy of removal of cases from State courts into the courts of the United States, given by sect. 641, applies to all cases in which equal protection of the laws may be denied to a defendant. And clearly it does not. The constitutional amendment is broader than the provisions of that section. The statute authorizes a removal of the case only before trial, not after a trial has commenced. It does not, therefore, embrace many cases in which a colored man's right may be denied. It does not embrace a case in which a right may be denied by judicial action during the trial, or by discrimination against him in the sentence, or in the mode of executing the sentence. But the violation of the constitutional provisions, when made by the judicial tribunals of a State, may be, and generally will be, after the trial has commenced. It is then, during or after the trial, that denials of a defendant's right by judicial tribunals occur. Not often until then. Nor can the defendant know until then that the equal protection of the laws will not be extended to him. Certainly until then he cannot affirm that it is denied, or that he cannot enforce it, in the judicial tribunals.

It is obvious, therefore, that to such a case-that is, a judicial infraction of the constitutional inhibitions, after trial or final hearing has commenced-sect. 641 has no applicability. It was not intended to reach such cases. It left them to the revisory power of the higher courts of the State, and ultimately to the review of this court. We do not say that Congress could not have authorized the removal of such a case into the Federal courts at any stage of its proceeding, whenever a ruling should be made in it denying the equal protection of the laws to the defendant. Upon that subject it is unnecessary to affirm any thing. It is sufficient to say now that sect. 641 does not.

It is evident, therefore, that the denial or inability to enforce in the judicial tribunals of a State, rights secured to a defendant by any law providing for the equal civil rights of all persons citizens of the United States, of which sect. 641 speaks, is primarily, if not exclusively, a denial of such rights, or an inability to enforce them, resulting from the Constitution or laws of the State, rather than a denial first made manifest at the trial of the case. In other words, the statute has reference to a legislative denial or an inability resulting from it. Many such cases of denial might have been apprehended, and some existed. Colored men might have been, as they had been, denied a trial by jury. They might have been excluded by law from any jury summoned to try persons of their race, or the law might have denied to them the testimony of colored men in their favor, or process for summoning witnesses. Numerous other illustrations might be given. In all such cases a defendant can affirm, on oath, before trial, that he is denied the equal protection of the laws or equality of civil rights. But in the absence of constitutional or legislative impediments he cannot swear before his case comes to trial that his enjoyment of all his civil rights is denied to him. When he has only an apprehension that such rights will be withheld from him when his case shall come to trial, he cannot affirm that they are actually denied, or that he cannot enforce them. Yet such an affirmation is essential to his right to remove his case. By the express requirement of the statute his petition must set forth the facts upon which he bases his claim to have his case removed, and not merely his belief that he cannot enforce his rights at a subsequent stage of the proceedings. The statute was not, therefore, intended as a corrective of errors or wrongs committed by judicial tribunals in the administration of the law at the trial.

The petition of the two colored men for the removal of their case into the Federal court does not appear to have made any case for removal, if we are correct in our reading of the act of Congress. It did not assert, nor is it claimed now, that the Constitution or laws of Virginia denied to them any civil right, or stood in the way of their enforcing the equal protection of the laws. The law made no discrimination against them because of their color, nor any discrimination at all. The complaint is that there were no colored men in the jury that indicted them, nor in the petit jury summoned to try them. The petition expressly admitted that by the laws of the State all male citizens twenty-one years of age and not over sixty, who are entitled to vote and hold office under the Constitution and laws thereof, are made liable to serve as jurors. And it affirms (what is undoubtedly true) that this law allows the right, as well as requires the duty, of the race to which the petitioners belong to serve as jurors. It does not exclude colored citizens.

Now, conceding as we do, and as we endeavored to maintain in the case of Strauder v. West Virginia (supra, p. 303), that discrimination by law against the colored race, because of their color, in the selection of jurors, is a denial of the equal protection of the laws to a negro when he is put upon trial for an alleged criminal offence against a State, the laws of Virginia make no such discrimination. If, as was alleged in the argument, though it does not appear in the petition or record, the officer to whom was intrusted the selection of the persons from whom the juries for the indictment and trial of the petitioners were drawn, disregarding the statute of the State, confined his selection to white persons, and refused to select any persons of the colored race, solely because of their color, his action was a gross violation of the spirit of the State's laws, as well as of the act of Congress of March 1, 1875, which prohibits and punishes such discrimination. He made himself liable to punishment at the instance of the State and under the laws of the United States. In one sense, indeed, his act was the act of the State, and was prohibited by the constitutional amendment. But inasmuch as it was a criminal misuse of the State law, it cannot be said to have been such a 'denial or disability to enforce in the judicial tribunals of the State' the rights of colored men, as is contemplated by the removal act. Sect. 641. It is to be observed that act gives the right of removal only to a person 'who is denied, or cannot enforce, in the judicial tribunals of the State his equal civil rights.' And this is to appear before trial. When a statute of the State denies his right, or interposes a bar to his enforcing it, in the judicial tribunals, the presumption is fair that they will be controlled by it in their decisions; and in such a case a defendant may affirm on oath what is necessary for a removal. Such a case is clearly within the provisions of sect. 641. But when a subordinate officer of the State, in violation of State law, undertakes to deprive an accused party of a right which the statute law accords to him, as in the case at bar, it can hardly be said that he is denied, or cannot enforce, 'in the judicial tribunals of the State' the rights which belong to him. In such a case it ought to be presumed the court will redress the wrong. If the accused is deprived of the right, the final and practical denial will be in the judicial tribunal which tries the case, after the trial has commenced. If, as in this case, the subordinate officer whose duty it is to select jurors fails to discharge that duty in the true spirit of the law; if he excludes all colored men solely because they are colored; or if the sheriff to whom a venire is given, composed of both white and colored citizens, neglects to summon the colored jurors only because they are colored; or if a clerk whose duty it is to take the twelve names from the box rejects all the colored jurors for the same reason,-it can with no propriety be said the defendant's right is denied by the State and cannot be enforced in the judicial tribunals. The court will correct the wrong, will quash the indictment or the panel, or, if not, the error will be corrected in a superior court. We cannot think such cases are within the provisions of sect. 641. Denials of equal rights in the action of the judicial tribunals of the State are left to the revisory powers of this court.

The assertions in the petition for removal, that the grand jury by which the petitioners were indicted, as well as the jury summoned to try them, were composed wholly of the white race, and that their race had never been allowed to serve as jurors in the county of Patrick in any case in which a colored man was interested, fall short of showing that any civil right was denied, or that there had been any discrimination against the defendants because of their color or race. The facts may have been as stated, and yet the jury which indicted them, and the panel summoned to try them, may have been impartially selected.

Nor did the refusal of the court and of the counsel for the prosecution to allow a modification of the venire, by which one-third of the jury, or a portion of it, should be composed of persons of the petitioners own race, amount to any denial of a right secured to them by any law providing for the equal civil rights of citizens of the United States. The privilege for which they moved, and which they also asked from the prosecution, was not a right given or secured to them, or to any person, by the law of the State, or by any act of Congress, or by the [[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|Fourteenth Amendment]]]]]]]]]]]] of the Constitution. It is a right to which every colored man is entitled, that, in the selection of jurors to pass upon his life, liberty, or property, there shall be no exclusion of his race, and no discrimination against them because of their color. But this is a different thing from the right which it is asserted was denied to the petitioners by the State court, viz. a right to have the jury composed in part of colored men. A mixed jury in a particular case is not essential to the equal protection of the laws, and the right to it is not given by any law of Virginia, or by any Federal statute. It is not, therefore, guaranteed by the [[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|[[Additional amendments to the United States Constitution#Amendment XIV|Fourteenth Amendment]]]]]]]]]]]], or within the purview of sect. 641.

It follows that the petition for a removal stated no facts that brought the case within the provisions of this section, and, consequently, no jurisdiction of the case was acquired by the Circuit Court of the United States. In the absence of such jurisdiction the writ of habeas corpus, by which the petitioners were taken from the custody of the State authorities, should not have been issued. The Circuit Court has now no authority to hold them, and they should be remanded.

Upon the question whether a writ of mandamus is a proper proceeding to enforce the return of the men indicted to the custody of the State authorities, little need be said, in view of former decisions of this court. Sect. 688 of the Revised Statutes enacts that the Supreme Court shall have power to issue . . . writs of mandamus in cases warranted by the principles and usages of law, to any courts appointed under the authority of the United States, or to persons holding office under the authority of the United States, where a State or an ambassador, or other public minister, or a consul or vice-consul, is a party. In what case such a writ is warranted by the principles and usages of law it is not always easy to determine. Its use has been very much extended in modern times, and now it may be said to be an established remedy to oblige inferior courts and magistrates to do that justice which they are in duty, and by virtue of their office, bound to do. It does not lie to control judicial discretion, except when that discretion has been abused; but it is a remedy when the case is outside of the exercise of this discretion, and outside the jurisdiction of the court or officer to which or to whom the writ is addressed. One of its peculiar and more common uses is to restrain inferior courts and to keep them within their lawful bounds. Bacon's Abridgment, Mandamus, Letter D; Tapping on Mandamus, 105; 3 Bl. Com. 110. This subject was discussed at length in Ex parte Bradley (7 Wall. 364), and what was there said renders unnecessary any discussion of it now. To that discussion we refer. In our judgment it vindicates the use of a writ of mandamus in such a case as the present.

The writ will, therefore, be awarded; and it is

So ordered.

Notes