''Bell v. Maryland'', 378 U.S. 226 (1964), provided an opportunity for the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

to determine whether

racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...

in the provision of public accommodations by a privately owned restaurant violated the Equal Protection and

Due Process Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...

Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...

. 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 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 ...

of twelve

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

students should be dismissed.

Background

In 1960, twelve African American students were part of a group, which conducted a

sit-in A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...

at Hooper's restaurant in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, 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 In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

Decision

Although the Court had been briefed regarding whether the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment were applicable to the

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

, the

majority 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. Not all cases have ...

noted that both the City of Baltimore and Maryland had passed laws against

by an owner or operator of a place of public accommodation. The state antidiscrimination statute went further and forbade discrimination in

public accommodations In United States law, public accommodations are generally defined as facilities, whether publicly or privately owned, that are used by the public at large. Examples include retail stores, rental establishments, and service establishments as well ...

for

sleeping Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...

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 In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

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 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. However, 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

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. Maryland ''Griffin v. Maryland'', 378 U.S. 130 (1964), 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 ...

'', 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 Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964), was a case in which the US Supreme Court held that due process prohibits retroactive application of any judicial construction of a criminal statute that is unexpected and indefensible by reference to ...

'', 378 U.S. 347 (1964). The Supreme Court did not reach the merits of any argument addressing in any of those cases on whether private actions of segregation that were enforced by state courts were a state action violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decisions were announced two days after the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

ended a

filibuster A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out ...

and passed the bill that would become the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...

, which outlawed segregation in public accommodations. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court refrained from reaching the merits in those cases in consideration of the Act to avoid eliminating the basis for passing the legislation.

Subsequent developments

The convictions were vacated 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. Bell Robert Mack Bell (born July 6, 1943) is an American lawyer and jurist from Baltimore, Maryland. From 1996 to 2013, he served as Chief Judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. He was the first African American to hol ...

, 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 of 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.

References

External links