Court v. King

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court last week upheld the 1963 conviction of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and seven other Negro civil rights leaders for defying an Alabama state court injunction against a civil rights march in Birmingham. King, whose group had been denied a parade license by burly "Bull" Connor, then Birmingham's commissioner of public safety, was sentenced by an Alabama court to a five-day jail term and $50 fine for carrying out the march despite the restraining order. Reviewing the case, the Supreme Court majority took the position that King could have appealed the injunction and might have won the right to march; instead he chose to defy the law. Wrote Justice Potter Stewart: "No man can be judge in his own case, however exalted his station, however righteous his motives, and irrespective of his race, color, politics or religion."

From the court's four dissenters--Chief Justice Earl Warren, Associate Justices William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas and William J. Brennan--came a blistering objection written by Brennan: "We cannot permit fears of 'riots' and 'civil disobedience' generated by slogans like black power to divert our attention from what is here at stake-arming the state courts with the power to punish as a 'contempt' what they otherwise could not punish at all." Although the state is unlikely to seek extradition, King plans to go to jail in Alabama next month.

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