Finan was interested in encouraging the practice of segregation.īut Mr.

Hawes, 64, now a lawyer in private practice, said that no one working under then Attorney General Thomas B. Murphy, who is now chief judge on the Court of Appeals. Defending the state's position with him was Deputy Attorney General Robert C. Hawes, then an assistant attorney general, argued that the state's trespass laws were constitutional so that the arrests should be upheld. When the case reached the Supreme Court, Loring F. Watts, who retired as a Baltimore Circuit Court judge in 1985 after 17 years on the bench. He said 'I built this place up myself and I don't want it changed,' ' said Mr. He wouldn't drop the charges, and he wouldn't let blacks sit at his tables. Carroll Hooper, refused to compromise before the trial. Robert Watts, one of the lawyers who defended the students, said the court case focused on Hooper's, rather than any of the dozens of other restaurants targeted, because the owner, G. Second, they said the public accommodations laws enacted after the arrests meant that the students were not trespassing, RTC so that their arrests were moot. 15, 1963.įirst, they argued that when the students entered the restaurant, they were not notified that they were violating state trespass laws and so should not be charged with criminal violations. Lawyers for the students argued two points when they appeared before the court on Oct. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, both the Baltimore City Council and the Maryland General Assembly - weary of the student arrests - had enacted laws prohibiting the denial of public accommodations based on race. So many students were arrested that they slept in shifts at the City Jail and classes were held there for them. The sit-ins at Hooper's continued throughout the summer and spread to other downtown restaurants. With a legal team that included Juanita Jackson Mitchell and Thurgood Marshall, who were legal counsel to the NAACP, the convictions were appealed first to the Maryland Court of Appeals, which upheld the convictions, and then to the Supreme Court.

50s and 60s fonts