Petitioners, who are Negroes, entered a privately owned
amusement park which then had a policy of excluding Negroes. They
were ordered to leave by a park employee who was instructed to
enforce the racial policy and who was acting under his authority as
a deputy sheriff. They refused to leave, and were arrested by the
deputy sheriff and taken to the police station, where he filed
charges of criminal trespass and secured warrants. Petitioners were
tried and convicted of criminal trespass in a state court.
Held:
1. The action of an individual who, as a deputy sheriff
possessing state authority, purports to act pursuant to that
authority, is state action. It is immaterial that he could have
taken the same action in a purely private capacity, or that his
action was not authorized by state law.
Screws v. United
States, 325 U. S. 91,
followed. P.
378 U. S.
135.
2. When a State undertakes to enforce a private policy of racial
segregation, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
Pennsylvania v. Board of Trusts,
353 U. S. 230,
followed. Pp.
378 U. S.
135-137.
225 Md. 422, 171 A.2d 717, reversed.
Page 378 U. S. 131
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners were convicted of criminal trespass for refusing to
leave a privately owned and operated amusement park in the State of
Maryland at the command of an employee of the amusement park acting
under color of his authority as a deputy sheriff. For the reasons
set forth hereinafter, we hold that these convictions are violative
of the Fourteenth Amendment, and must be set aside.
The Glen Echo Amusement Park is located in Montgomery County,
Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Though the park, through its
advertisements, sought the patronage of the general public, it was
(until recently) the park's policy to exclude Negroes who wished to
patronize its facilities. No signs at the park apprised persons of
this policy or otherwise indicated that all comers were not
welcome. No tickets of admission were required. In protest against
the park's policy of segregation,
Page 378 U. S. 132
a number of whites and Negroes picketed the park on June 30,
1960. The petitioners, five young Negroes, were participating in
the protest. Hopeful that the management might change its policy,
they entered the park, and encountering no resistance from the park
employees, boarded the carousel. They possessed transferrable
tickets, previously purchased by others, entitling the holder to
ride on the carousel.
At that time, the park employed one Collins as a special
policeman by arrangement with the National Detective Agency.
Although Collins was formally retained and paid by the agency and
wore its uniform, he was subject to the control and direction of
the park management. Apparently at the request of the park, Collins
had been deputized as a sheriff of Montgomery County. [
Footnote 1] He wore, on the outside of
his uniform, a deputy sheriff's badge.
When Collins saw the petitioners sitting on the carousel waiting
for the ride to begin, he reported their presence to the park
manager. The manager told Collins that petitioners were to be
arrested for trespassing if they would not leave the park. Collins
then went up to the petitioners and told them that it was the
park's policy "not to have colored people on the rides, or in the
park." He ordered petitioners to leave within five minutes. They
declined to do so, pointing out that they had tickets for the
carousel. There was no evidence that any of the
Page 378 U. S. 133
petitioners were disorderly. At the end of the five-minute
period, Collins, as he testified, "went to each defendant and told
them that the time was up, and that they were under arrest for
trespassing." Collins transported the petitioners to the Montgomery
County police station. There, he filled out a form titled
"Application for Warrant by Police Officer." The application
stated:
"Francis J. Collins, being first duly sworn, on oath doth depose
and say: That he is a member of the Montgomery deputy sheriff
Department and as such, on the 30th day of June, 1960, at about the
hour of 8:45 P.M. he did observe the defendant William L. Griffin
in Glen Echo Park which is private property[.] [O]n order of Kebar
Inc. owners of Glen Echo Park the def[endant] was asked to leave
the park and after giving him reasonable time to comply the
def[endant] refused to leave [and] he was placed under arrest for
trespassing. . . ."
"Whereas, Francis J. Collins doth further depose and say that
he, as a member of the Montgomery County Police Department believes
that _________ is violating Sec. 577 Article 27 of the Annotated
Code of Maryland."
"Francis J. Collins"
Md.Ann.Code, 1957 (Cum.Supp.1961), Art. 27, § 577, is a criminal
trespass statute. [
Footnote 2]
On the same day, a Maryland
Page 378 U. S. 134
Justice of the Peace issued a warrant which charged that
petitioner Griffin
"[d]id enter upon and pass over the land and premises of Glen
Echo Park . . . after having been told by the Deputy Sheriff for
Glen Echo Park, to leave the Property, and after giving him a
reasonable time to comply, he did not leave . . . contrary to the .
. . [Maryland criminal trespass statute] and against the peace,
government and dignity of the State."
The warrant recited that the complaint had been made by
"Collins, Deputy Sheriff." An amended warrant was later filed. It
stated that the complaint had been made by "Collins, Deputy
Sheriff," but charged Griffin with unlawfully entering the park
after having been told not to do so by "an Agent" of the
corporation which operated the park. Presumably identical documents
were filed with respect to the other petitioners.
Petitioners were tried and convicted of criminal trespass in the
Circuit Court of Montgomery County. Each was sentenced to pay a
fine of $100. The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed the
convictions. 225 Md. 422, 171 A.2d 717. That court, rejecting the
petitioners' constitutional claims, reasoned as follows:
"[T]he appellants in this case . . . were arrested for criminal
trespass committed in the presence of a special deputy sheriff of
Montgomery County (who was also the agent of the park operator)
after they had been duly notified to leave but refused to do so. It
follows -- since the offense for which these appellants were
arrested was a misdemeanor committed in the presence of the park
officer who had a right to arrest them, either in his private
capacity as an agent or employee of the operator of the park or in
his limited capacity as a special deputy sheriff in the amusement
park . . . -- the arrest of these appellants for a criminal
trespass in this manner was no more than if a regular police
officer had been called upon
Page 378 U. S. 135
to make the arrest for a crime committed in his presence. . . .
[T]he arrest and conviction of these appellants for a criminal
trespass as a result of the enforcement by the operator of the park
of its lawful policy of segregation, did not constitute such action
as may fairly be said to be that of the State."
225 Md. at 431, 171 A.2d at 721. We granted certiorari, 370 U.S.
935, and set the case for reargument. 373 U.S. 920.
Collins -- in ordering the petitioners to leave the park and in
arresting and instituting prosecutions against them -- purported to
exercise the authority of a deputy sheriff. He wore a sheriff's
badge, and consistently identified himself as a deputy sheriff,
rather than as an employee of the park. Though an amended warrant
was filed stating that petitioners had committed an offense because
they entered the park after an "agent" of the park told them not to
do so, this change has little, if any, bearing on the character of
the authority which Collins initially purported to exercise. If an
individual is possessed of state authority and purports to act
under that authority, his action is state action. It is irrelevant
that he might have taken the same action had he acted in a purely
private capacity, or that the particular action which he took was
not authorized by state law.
See, e.g., Screws v. United
States, 325 U. S. 91. Thus,
it is clear that Collins' action was state action.
See Williams
v. United States, 341 U. S. 97;
see also Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.,
331 U. S. 416,
331 U. S. 429.
The only question remaining in this case is whether Collins' action
denied petitioners the equal protection of the laws secured to them
by the Fourteenth Amendment. If it did, these convictions are
invalid.
It cannot be disputed that, if the State of Maryland had
operated the amusement park on behalf of the owner thereof, and had
enforced the owner's policy of racial segregation
Page 378 U. S. 136
against petitioners, petitioners would have been deprived of the
equal protection of the laws.
Pennsylvania v. Board of
Trusts, 353 U. S. 230;
cf. Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.
S. 715. In the
Board of Trusts case, we were
confronted with the following situation. Stephen Girard, by will,
had left a fund in trust to establish a college. He had provided in
his will, in effect, that only "poor white male orphans" were to be
admitted. The fund was administered by the Board of Directors of
City Trusts of the City of Philadelphia, as trustee. In accord with
the provisions of the will, it denied admission to two Negro
applicants who were otherwise qualified. We held:
"The Board which operates Girard College is an agency of the
State of Pennsylvania. Therefore, even though the Board was acting
as a trustee, its refusal to admit Foust and Felder to the college
because they were Negroes was discrimination by the State. Such
discrimination is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Brown
v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483."
353 U.S. at
353 U. S.
231.
The
Board of Trusts case must be taken to establish
that, to the extent that the State undertakes an obligation to
enforce a private policy of racial segregation, the State is
charged with racial discrimination, and violates the Fourteenth
Amendment.
It is argued that the State may nevertheless constitutionally
enforce an owner's desire to exclude particular persons from his
premises even if the owner's desire is, in turn, motivated by a
discriminatory purpose. The State, it is said, is not really
enforcing a policy of segregation, since the owner's ultimate
purpose is immaterial to the State. In this case, it cannot be said
that Collins was simply enforcing the park management's desire to
exclude designated individuals from the premises. The president
Page 378 U. S. 137
of the corporation which owned and managed the park testified
that he had instructed Collins to enforce the park's policy of
racial segregation. Collins was told to exclude Negroes from the
park and escort them from the park if they entered. He was
instructed to arrest Negroes for trespassing if they did not leave
the park when he ordered them to do so. In short, Collins, as
stated by the Maryland Court of Appeals, was "then under contract
to protect and enforce . . . [the] racial segregation policy of the
operator of the amusement park. . . ." 225 Md. at 430, 171 A.2d at
720. Pursuant to this obligation, Collins ordered petitioners to
leave and arrested them, as he testified, because they were
Negroes. This was state action forbidden by the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS would reverse for the reasons stated in his
opinion in
Bell v. Maryland, 378 U.S.
378 U. S.
242.
[
Footnote 1]
The Maryland Court of Appeals opinion below stated that Collins
was deputized at the request of the park management pursuant to §
2-91 of the Montgomery County Code of 1955, which provides that the
sheriff,
"on application of any corporation or individual, may appoint
special deputy sheriffs for duty in connection with the property of
. . . such corporation or individual; such special deputy sheriffs
to be paid wholly by the corporation or person on whose account
their appointments are made. Such special deputy sheriffs . . .
shall have the same power and authority as deputy sheriffs possess
within the area to which they are appointed, and in no other
area."
225 Md. 422, 430, 171 A.2d 717, 721.
[
Footnote 2]
That section provides:
"Any person . . . who shall enter upon or cross over the land,
premises or private property of any person . . . after having been
duly notified by the owner or his agent not to do so shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor . . . provided . . . [however] that
nothing in this section shall be construed to include within its
provisions the entry upon or crossing over any land when such entry
or crossing is done under a bona fide claim of right or ownership
of said land, it being the intention of this section only to
prohibit any wanton trespass upon the private land of others."
MR. JUSTICE CLARK, concurring.
I join the Court's opinion with the understanding that it merely
holds, under the peculiar facts here, that the State "must be
recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity."
See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.
S. 715,
365 U. S. 725
(1961). Deputy Sheriff Collins, an agent of the State, was
regularly employed by Glen Echo in the enforcement of its
segregation policy. I cannot, therefore, say, as does my Brother
HARLAN, that the situation "is no different from what it would have
been had the arrests been made by a regular policeman dispatched
from police headquarters." Here, Collins, the deputy sheriff,
ordered petitioners to leave the park before any charges were
filed. Upon refusal, Collins, the deputy sheriff, made the arrest
and then took petitioners to the police station, where he filed the
charges and secured the warrant. If
Page 378 U. S. 138
Collins had not been a police officer, if he had ordered the
appellants off the premises and filed the charges of criminal
trespass, and if then, for the first time, the police had come on
the scene to serve a warrant issued in due course by a magistrate,
based on the charges filed, that might be a different case. That
case we do not pass upon.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE WHITE
join, dissenting.
The pivotal issue in this case is whether petitioners' exclusion
from Glen Echo, a private amusement park, was the product of state
action. I accept the premise that, in arresting these petitioners,
Collins was exercising his authority as deputy sheriff, rather than
his right as an individual under Maryland law,
see 225 Md.
at 431, 171 A.2d at 721, to arrest them for a misdemeanor being
committed in his presence. It seems clear to me, however, that the
involvement of the State is no different from what it would have
been had the arrests been made by a regular policeman dispatched
from police headquarters.
I believe, therefore, that this case is controlled by the
principles discussed in MR. JUSTICE BLACK's opinion in
Bell v.
Maryland, 378 U.S.
378 U. S. 318,
and, accordingly, would affirm the judgment below.