CLAIMS COPS BROKE LAW IN LIBRARY CASE
Says Race Is No Crime Under Ordinance of Trespassing
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 22—Not only are the five youths who were arrested for using the city library here innocent of any wrong doing or illegal action, but the officers who arrested them are liable to punishment under the law, Samuel Wilbur Tucker, defense attorney in the now-famous library case, pleads in his brief filed with the court last week.
There is no statute or ordinance in common law under which an act of trespassing makes it a crime for a person of one race and not for a member of another race.
This was one of the points of law in the brief filed with the court by Mr. Tucker, following the request of Judge James Duncan sitting on the police court bench last week for attorneys on both sides to submit legal authorities to him for study in connection with the case of the five young men arrested for using the library.
Tucker’s brief was submitted in answer to the one filed by City Prosecutor Armistead L. Boothe, white.
Makes Issue
The young men are charged with disorderly conduct, and after three continuances of their trial, the judge requested the authorities from which he is expected to base his decision.
Failure to obey a police officer under circumstances similar to those in the case constitutes disorderly conduct, it is argued by Boothe in his brief. He cites the case of People versus Galpern in New York, in 1932.
Pointing out the fact that one of the defendants, when approached by the arresting policeman in the library, asked the latter what would be done to him if he did not leave as ordered, Mr. Boothe contends that a case in South Carolina established the grounds that any language used by the defendant which was calculated to produce disorder and to disturb the quiet and peace was unlawful and considered to be disorderly conduct, even though no one was disturbed.
Race No Item
Answering these arguments, Tucker’s brief states that “if one is in a place he has a right to be, and is doing what he has a right to do, in a lawful manner, he may resist any assault made upon him even if necessary to the extent of taking his assailant’s life, provided the assailant apparently threatens life or great bodily harm.”
He used the case of Otto L. Tucker, one of the defendants, instead of that of Morris L. Murray, who was the first to be called to trial, since the latter had been passed over due to new evidence in Tucker’s case.
“Therefore,” Lawyer Tucker contends, “if we assume that Tucker (referring to Otto L. Tucker, who is his brother) has the right to sit and read in the library, there is nothing left for judicial determination unless we find that: (1) the police officer’s order that Tucker should leave the library was clothed with the authority of law, or (2) the manner in which he exercised the right we are assuming him to have had was in fact disorderly and in fact did breach the peace.”
Act Unlawful
On the first point cited above, the defense attorney contends that upon the assumption that the young man has a right to sit and read, the police officer was not only without authority of law to order him to leave, but that his attempt to make him leave was unlawful and punishable under the criminal law, and actionable under the civil laws of the state.
Concerning the second point, he declares that the evidence shows that the only objectionable feature about the entire incident was that Tucker is colored, and that in the absence of a statute requiring the court to do so, “we cannot allow his racial identity to enter into the consideration of this case.”
Library is Public
“One who without invitation quietly enters a library,” the brief continues, “though privately owned and operated, and does no more than sit and read therein is neither guilty of disorderly conduct tending to breach of the peace (until he refuses to leave upon request of the owner), nor of any offence approaching the magnitude of a crime; and his innocence is in no wise altered by the fact that he may be a colored man and that the definitely known policy of the library is to accommodate white people only.”
Furthermore, he argues, “there is no statute or ordinance under which such an act—amounting to no more than a trespass if any offence at all—when committed by a person of one race, can be construed as a crime when committed by a person of another race; and certainly such discrimination is unknown to common law.”
Law Enjoins City
The contract under which the library was established clearly indicates that the library is a public library, Tucker’s brief states, adding that the building is maintained at considerable expense to the city.
Where the municipality has undertaken the function of providing public library facilities, not only does the law give to every citizen the right to the use thereof, he asserts, but the law enjoins the municipality from denying to any citizen access to any building which may be dedicated for such public use, regardless of his race or color.
The men on trial in the case are Otto L. Tucker, Morris L. Murray, Clarence Strange, William Evans, and Edward Gaddis. They were arrested August 21.
