Lombard v. Louisiana

1963-05-20

Headline: Court reverses trespass convictions for college students who staged a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter, ruling city officials and police cannot use state power to enforce restaurant racial segregation.

Holding: The Court held that convictions must be reversed because city officials' public commands and police enforcement made the restaurant's racial segregation effectively state action, so criminal punishment could not stand.

Real World Impact:

Stops cities from using police to enforce private segregation at restaurants.
Protects peaceful sit-ins from criminal trespass convictions when backed by official directives.
Limits businesses' ability to invoke state power to remove customers based on race.

Topics: racial segregation, sit-in protests, police enforcement, public accommodations

Summary

Background

Four college students—three Black and one white—sat at a lunch counter in a McCrory store in New Orleans on September 17, 1960 and were refused service. The store manager asked them to leave, called police, and they were arrested under a Louisiana criminal mischief law. A state court convicted them, sentencing each to 60 days in jail and a $350 fine, and the convictions were later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Reasoning

The Court examined whether the arrests and convictions could stand when city officials had publicly declared that sit-in demonstrations would not be permitted and had urged police enforcement. The majority said those public commands had the coercive effect of an ordinance forbidding desegregation and applied the Court’s prior reasoning in a similar case. Because the State, through its officials and enforcement, effectively backed and enforced racial segregation at the lunch counter, the Court reversed the convictions for that reason.

Real world impact

The decision prevents local officials and police from using official statements and criminal processes to force private businesses to maintain racial segregation. It protects orderly, peaceful attempts to obtain service from being converted into criminal trespass convictions when enforcement reflects an official city policy to bar desegregation. The ruling directly overturned the jail and fine sentences imposed on these students.

Dissents or concurrances

In a concurrence, Justice Douglas emphasized that state licensing and supervision of public-serving businesses makes them instruments of the State, so the State cannot lawfully license or enforce apartheid in such places.